


ROUGH MAGIC

by glinda4thegood



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-28
Updated: 2011-03-03
Packaged: 2017-10-16 02:01:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glinda4thegood/pseuds/glinda4thegood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Third in the Singer/Mills Mystery Series. A divination spell turns to something more, and a visitor asks for help from five hunters and an angel, in a war against dragons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. MAGICIAN

**Author's Note:**

> Dr. Visyak gets a first name from me.

Author: **Glinda**  
Rating: **NC17**  
Timeline: Post 6.14  


 **MAGICIAN**

Bobby Singer stared at the symbols on the obscene yellow skin and yawned until his jaw cracked. Stacks of e-mails, notes, handwritten and typed letters were piled around the library desk, evidence of his single-minded intention to translate the dragon grimoire.

The soft chime announcing an e-mail delivery came from the kitchen. Bobby picked up the ancient book with a handkerchief he'd taken to using when he had to touch the thing, and put it in a drawer, out of sight.

 _Visyak: re photos_

The e-mail header didn't particularly surprise him. The grimoire's uniqueness, both in language and construction, had made it difficult to get information from his usual sources, and Helene Visyak _was_ at the top of a very short list of experts. Once he'd made up his mind to send photos of the book, he'd known she would respond like a brook trout spotting a juicy worm.

He clicked the document.

 _Bobby, I may be able to locate information on a similar codex. You've ascertained it is human skin? I'll be in touch soon. ~HV._

Brief for her, terse even. A man knew he was in trouble when Helene Visyak starting using short sentences.

The computer chimed again. This message was from Jonsie, an old professor friend who lived outside of Boston. He had been the first source Bobby tried to contact, and, as usual, the last source to respond.

 _What the hell are you into now, you crazy old man? I'm running the text by a couple of my Syrian contacts. I've only been able to find reference to one other similar grimoire, a palimpsest codex. Burned in the fourteenth century during a series of mostly historically undocumented events that ended in the Black Death. How's the rat population in the yard, BTW?_

 _In reference to The Mother, I may have stumbled across something of interest. The Mad Russian sends his greetings, and a bit of recovered translation, which is attached._

 _I understand the Apocalypse has been averted -- but I have to warn you, statistical reporting of the weird has not diminished, rather continues to slowly increase. Let me know what you can, when you can._

 _Is Visyak working with you? She called here a couple of days ago, looking for similar info. Wear a cup, and be careful. ~Walt Jones_

Bobby clicked on the attachment, which started the slow process of opening a Word document. Sergei, the Mad Russian, was a treasure trove of hidden and forgotten lore. Bobby sent the document to the printer, then grabbed a root beer from the refrigerator. He pulled the pages off the printer and returned to his desk.

 _Greetings Bobby, may this find you well. Jonsie says you are seeking big game. The following text is taken from a ruined incunable stored in my monastery. We believe it dates to around 1460._

 __. . . to know . . . Mother's . . . brood . . . her name inscribed . . . heart of stone . . . placed beyond the gate guarded . . . with ritual may seek . . . offering will allow supplicant to choose level . . . Blood is not the key, death in symbol or act will show . . . __

 _The attached diagram is in better shape. It looks like Enochian work, perhaps a proto-devil's trap. Inscribed below the diagram are both words of incantation, and separately presented sigils with an instruction they be inscribed widdershins on the pentagram -- something I have seen only a handful of times._

 _Jonsie agrees with us, this has the potential to be a most powerful divination spell._

 _Death in symbol or act would be needed to activate the spell, I think. Since the fragment says "blood is not the key," I believe something as ordinary as a butchered chicken might serve to access the power of the spell. At the lowest level of activation, it's probably not dangerous, as these things go, but then again . . . The implication that varying levels of death give greater strength to the spell is inescapable. I know you well enough not to fear extreme measures; still, if you choose to perform the ritual I would appreciate a recording, both visual and written._

 _Visyak is on the prowl. Be well, stay safe. ~Sergei._

  
The yard was quiet, oppressive under a gray sky. Bobby walked briskly between rows of cars. Too much time sitting at the desk had stiffened him up. Light faded around him as he worked his way back to the house, the leisurely inspection of the outer rings of his collection providing enough of an obstacle course to get his blood moving.

The diagram and incantation nagged at his mind. They looked a lot like a pentagram of protection, although there were significant differences. The words of the incantation were, themselves, standard and usually benign divination requests.

As he came back into the house, his cell phone buzzed.

"Bobby. You want company tonight? I've got two days off in a row."

"Jodie. Yeah, no weirdness going on. I'd like to see you," Bobby said. "Could you pick up a chicken on your way here -- whole roaster, not frozen?"

"Sure." She laughed. "Are you going to cook for me?"

"Don't I always?" Bobby closed his phone. He knew he had a self-satisfied grin on his face. Friend, lover, steady hand to turn to in an emergency, Jodie Mills had, quietly and without fanfare, become an important part of his life.

He went back to the desk. There were other divination spells in his collection of literature. A comparison might be interesting.

Jodie's knock and the vibration of his cell phone came simultaneously, jolting him out of research mode. He put his phone to an ear while he walked. "Yeah."

"Bobby. We'll be coming in tomorrow, before noon." Dean's voice was ragged, and sounded thin and faraway. "Sam had an episode while we were in Bristol."

"Episode?" Bobby felt his heart jump up and lodge in his throat. "He remember hell?"

"Not exactly. He convulsed, and stayed unconscious for several minutes. I think . . ." Dean coughed, went on, "Sorry. Fumes in the Impala. I need to do a little work on her. Sam started remembering things he did in the year after he came back, without a soul. We'll talk when we see you."

"Yeah." Bobby closed his phone and opened the door for Jodie. "Come on in, it's safe."

It had become a joking routine between them, this careful entrance to the world beyond her job as sheriff. Jodie's fine dark hair brushed the shoulders of a tight little t-shirt. Tighter than she might have worn a few weeks ago, Bobby thought. He smiled and stopped her with a hand on the back of her neck, buried in the soft hair.

"You look good." He felt the grin on her mouth as he kissed her. "Is that my chicken?"

"Sometimes I just don't know how to answer the questions you ask, Bobby Singer." Her fingers brushed over his mustache. She swung the oversized purse she used as an overnight carryall off her shoulder and swatted him on the butt. "I brought you a Clint Eastwood DVD."

"Josey Wales? And the Annie Oakley costume?" He laughed and dodged her fist.

"In your wet dreams, lech." Jodie dropped her bag next to the library desk, then carried the plastic grocery bag through to the kitchen. "I'll put it in the fridge. I could hear you talking -- on the phone, or do you have other company?"

"Dean called. They're coming in tomorrow."

She turned from the refrigerator, put her hands on her hips and studied him. Cop face, Bobby thought with resignation. She rarely pulled that on him anymore, but sometimes, he knew, she couldn't help it. Jodie had a finely tuned sense of the nuances in her environment, a talent that served her well as sheriff in a town where, increasingly, the weird intruded on the normal.

"Problem?" she asked, finally.

"Dean thinks the wall in Sam has been breached."

Jodie walked over to the kitchen table and sat down. "Make me a sandwich and tell me about it."

They ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Bobby had the feeling she heard most of what he wasn't saying in words as he told her about his conversation with Dean.

"It seems like this "wall" thing is breaking down awfully quickly." Jodie finished a last bite of sandwich and licked jelly from her fingers.

"Yeah. And Dean isn't going to want to let him hunt any more. And _that_ dog won't hunt, with Sam. We're all committed to this new disaster movie." A sense of urgency had been building in him from the moment he'd seen the grimoire. It was different from the structured insanity of an impending Apocalypse. This was a wild, chaotic fear without accessible myth, legend and history to offer explanation and assistance.

"What else?" Jodie touched his hand. "Bobby?"

"I got some information from a friend today. It might be a . . . shortcut to help us find out more about what we're facing." They hadn't taken this step yet, gone deeper into the dark stuff he researched, filled his mind with. "It's a divination spell," he blurted out. There was just no way to gloss it over.

"Spell? Magic?" Her face was serious. "Bobby, I'm not comfortable with this."

"Yeah. To tell the truth, I'm not either." He watched her think it over.

"I know about the devil's traps, the pentagrams, and some of those Enochian marks you make." Jodie shook her head. "After I got past the _it's not black magic_ realization, I pushed it to the back of my head. Is there more you haven't told me about, more magic stuff?"

Bobby shrugged. "Not really. Computers and the Internet are more voodoo than most of what I do. Quite a few exorcisms, told you about that. I know an arsenal of protection stuff, some unconventional use of herbs . . ."

"What kind of herbs?" Jodie smiled as he made an expression of exaggerated innocence. "Are you going to let me into this part of your life now?"

"I knew you wouldn't run screaming." The decision had already been made before he took conscious time to think it over. Bobby pushed back from the table. "Come on. We're going to the basement."

"Bobby Singer." She stood. "Any bodies down there?"

"Not currently." He led the way to the library. He gathered Sergei's e-mail and printed letter, then unfastened the shotgun under the desk. "Here. You hang onto this for a while."

Jodie took the sawed-off shotgun with raised eyebrows. "I'm sure this is legal."

"Definitely." He laughed, winked. "Breaching rounds, silver filings and salt." He led the way down the basement stairs.

"I pictured something more . . . Hammer film," she said, looking at the panic room door. "Iron?"

"Yeah." Bobby stepped inside first, gestured. "Surrounded by iron. Keeps things out, keeps things in." He watched her absorb the bare amenities of the room. "Hang out on the bed while I work."

She laughed, low in her throat. "You know I will."

Damn the woman, she could still make him blush. He studied the devil's trap on the floor. Dimensionally, it was fine. The basic shape was pentacular, but the existing sigils would have to go. Bobby found a can of spray paint in the trunk and began the careful process of whiting out the existing sigils and a few of the interior lines. When he finished covering the last sigil, he stepped to the bed and sat next to Jodie.

"It will take a few minutes for that paint to dry." He put his arm around her and pulled her against him. "Set the gun out of the way."

She got comfortable, her head on his chest. "Talk to me, Bobby."

He kissed her forehead and slipped one hand up under a breast.

"I said talk to me, not look for hidden Braille messages." She poked him in the ribs. "You promised full disclosure back when we first . . ."

"When you first knocked me flat and took advantage?" It was such a pleasure to hold her, share with her, tease her. The barren years after Karen's death had been more terrible than even he had realized. "Where shall I start? The war in Heaven, or the return of dragons . . ."

It didn't take all that long. Jodie asked a few questions, but mostly just absorbed the information. He liked that about her, the ability to absorb, process and deliberate over an experience, or new information without dramatics. He liked that she was also able to make a decision to act quickly, when she had to. Truth be told, there wasn't anything he didn't like about Jodie Mills.

"So now, having run out of places to look for information, you're going to try a magic spell?" Jodie's voice just missed skeptical by a hair.

"Yeah." Bobby disentangled himself. "Paint should be dry."

It was. He knelt on the floor with the diagram and a black paint pen from the trunk. Painstakingly he copied each new sigil, one for each point of the pentagram, one inside the now empty, unlined interior. When he finished his legs were cramped and stiff. He stood and looked it over, comparing the finished form to the diagram.

"Should be good to go," he said. Now that the stage was set, Bobby found himself unwilling to rush into the act.

Jodie watched him, a question in her eyes. "What comes next?" she asked. Her fingers rested on the stock of the shotgun.

"I really wish you'd brought the Annie Oakley costume." He went to the bed and took the shotgun, placing it on the floor beneath the bedframe. "Dean and Sam will be here tomorrow, I don't know for how long."

Jodie pulled him down next to her. "What is it about Annie that gets your gun all hot?"

"The fringe." Bobby eased her shirt up over her head. A wave of woman-scented air filled his lungs, a melange of soap, fabric softener, and body warmed skin. His thigh muscles tightened in anticipation. "The hat. The leather boots."

Jodie popped the front snap on her bra. "Did you know that Buffalo Bill Cody used to advertise his show with big posters of buffalo and his portrait, with the announcement _I am coming_?"

"Did you know that Bill Cody thought women should get the same pay as men, if they did the same job?" He kissed the tip of one breast, then the other. He wondered if they would be together long enough for him to not be dazzled by the simple sight of her beautiful breasts. She shivered as he lay his head just above her heart.

"You've only kissed me once, as I came in the door. Has the novelty worn off?" Her hand tugged at his beard.

"Don't be stupid." Bobby felt her lips twitch as he kissed her, a wide smile that turned to intense cooperation as he gently took her bottom lip between his teeth. "I'll kiss anything you want, if you finish getting naked."

Jodie shimmied out of her pants. "You're a bad, bad man, Bobby Singer . . ."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When he woke from an easy doze, Bobby reached down beside the bed and fished in his discarded jeans. He found his cell phone and checked the time. Nearly 1:30 a.m. Jodie made an indistinct sound and butted her head into his chest. He let his fingers splay over the soft skin under her belly button. There was muscle under the skin, and more muscle in her arms than he remembered. The women's self-defense course she was taking to improve her hand-to-hand skills had already left a mark on her body.

"Hey. I'm going up for a bathroom break, a cold drink, and a dead chicken. Want anything?"

She grinned at him sleepily. "I'll come with, use the bathroom too."

They dressed quickly. After taking turns in the bathroom, Bobby grabbed two bottles of lemonade and the chicken out of the fridge. He took his time, drank all the lemonade while he studied Sergei's diagram. To be safe, he ringed the bed and the exterior of the pentagram with salt.

He placed the chicken on the floor over the center of the interior symbol and faced Jodie self-consciously.

"You see _anything_ that don't look right, that comes near you and won't stop, you use the shotgun." Bobby held her eyes. "Even if it looks like me. I don't expect trouble, but the rule is _always expect trouble._ Okay?"

She shook her head and lay the gun across her leg, pointing toward the floor. "Okay."

His body was too tense. Bobby took a deep breath, deliberately relaxing his arms and shoulders. He concentrated on the dead chicken at his feet. It looked ridiculous. He cleared his throat.

"Absit omen," he said, from memory. "Ab origin -- ad infinitum -- ex umbra in solem. Genēthḗtō phôs -- fiat lux."

His breath steamed in front of his eyes.

"Bobby?"

He met her eyes across the circle. "Cold happens. It's okay." When he looked down, the chicken was gone.

Frost bloomed over the iron walls, extending tendrils into delicate lace patterns against the dark metal.

"I seek enlightenment, information about the mater, the Mother of All." Bobby cocked his head and listened. Muffled silence filled the panic room, the house. Gradually the frost melted back into the iron and the air warmed.

"I should have brought a bigger chicken." Jodie looked around the room. "So, anything at all?"

"Nada." So much for that. Bobby stood for a moment longer.

"What's that?" Jodie looked up through the ceiling fan. "There it is again."

Her younger ears had heard the sounds first. _Thummp. Thummp thummmp._ Faint and sporadic, then increasing in frequency, it sounded like something was striking the roof.

"Hail?" Jodie followed him up the stairs.

The sounds were louder in the kitchen. Something glanced off a window with a solid noise that rattled the glass. Bobby stopped to grab his Colt from the desk. "Watch my back."

The scene in the yard looked like something out of a graphic comic. Bobby eased the door open, staying well within the shelter of the house. Birds lay twitching in the pools of illumination cast by his overhead lights. They continued to fall as he watched, striking the roof overhead, glancing off abandoned autos, or raining straight down into puddles of black feathers that gathered on the hard packed dirt.

"That can't be good," Jodie muttered.

"Shit. No." As they watched, thumps became farther between. "Looks like it's about . . ."

An explosive crash and sound of rending metal from a nearby shed hit their ears like the strike of lightning after a slow build-up of thunder.

"That was no bird." Bobby crossed the yard quickly, Jodie at his side. They both tried to avoid stepping on the feathered bodies, both stepped on at least a couple. Bobby slowed as they rounded the side of the shed, holding the Colt ready.

"It looks like a body." Jodie stepped up beside him, then turned slightly away so she could keep an eye behind them.

The outline of a head, legs and arms argued in favor of the observation. "Need a damn flashlight," he said.

"Stand still for a minute, let your eyes adjust."

"Woman," Bobby said finally. "Naked. And either she's got a lot of ink, or there's an alternative we probably won't like."

"Not moving at all?" Jodie spared a quick glance at the dark heap. "Let's get her in the house."

"I know situations like this are new to you," Bobby said cautiously, "so don't take this wrong when I say the survival rate of Good Samaritans in this business is pretty poor."

"You asked for an omen, if I got the Latin," she said, "and here's a big freaking omen dropped from the sky along with a heap of dead birds. Pick her up. It will be okay, I have a feeling."

"Good. You have a feeling." Bobby handed her the Colt. "When it sucks my face off, make sure my tombstone says -- Here lies Bobby Singer, Good Samaritan."

"I think I've got some Midol in my purse." Jodie stepped away and raised the shotgun.

The unconscious, or dead, woman was long, unexpectedly light, and her skin burned hot against his fingers. Bobby could detect no sign of breathing. When he got her into the brighter light of the yard, the colors of the ink on her skin took on depth and detail. Amazing work, from what he could see.

Jodie let him go ahead until they got to the door, then she slipped in front of him.

Bobby carried the woman to the library bed. When he placed her carefully on the blanket, she sprawled, limp and completely naked, without any sign of life.

"More graphic novel stuff," he muttered. She had a killer body, exaggerated tapering legs, slim hips, tiny waist, and frankly implausible breasts that looked like they were generating their own anti-gravity field.

Jodie lay her fingers on the woman's neck, then cuffed him lightly on the shoulder. "I'll get a pan of cool water. Her heart is beating, way too fast. And she's burning up."

"Lukewarm water." Bobby touched the pattern curling over one forearm. Her skin wasn't just hot, it felt thin, somehow, as if there was no meat between skin and bone, only muscle. While Jodie was gone he took a more leisurely look at her breasts.

Most of the tattoo work was on her backside, and since she was laying on that portion of her anatomy, he could only see where the design curled around the tops of her shoulders, trailed across her rib cage, and framed her hips. She had no pubic hair, only waving lines of color on smooth skin. Long curls of pattern ran down her legs and arms. A filigree of blue, green and gold twined up her neck, along her cheekbones and disappeared into her hairline. Her face, slack and unresponsive, had an unreal perfection. Sable brown eyelashes made twin crescent moons against the faint golden tan of her skin. A short, straight nose perched above full lips. The short cap of thick, waving hair was nearly burgundy in color.

Bobby returned to inspecting her breasts.

"Quit looking at her breasts." Jodie pushed him to one side and set a plastic bowl on the reading table. She dipped a washcloth into the bowl, then carefully began to wipe the woman's arms, neck and cheeks with the lukewarm water.

"I was looking at her tattoos. See, around the nipples. Tattoos."

She moved under Jodie's hands, a small hissing intake of breath. Jodie rinsed and wrung out the cloth and held it to her forehead.

"Hey. Can you hear me? How do you feel?"

The question made Bobby wonder how a person _should_ feel after dropping, naked, from the sky, landing on a shed roof, then caroming to the ground. He didn't see any blood or injuries marring the ink and fine skin. He was pretty sure the answer to his question was _dead,_ but there were tougher things than him in the universe.

"Maybe she's an angel." He saw Jodie's hands pause, then resume. "I did tell you about the angels."

"You said they were dicks." Jodie continued rinsing and wiping.

"I know one who fell to earth after she removed her grace. This one hit pretty hard, but nothing like a meteor." Bobby touched her arm. "She's cooling down." He rummaged under the bed for the extra blanket, and pulled the worn, soft cotton over her legs and hips.

Jodie held her fingers over the pulse point again. "Slowing. Still fast, though."

A shudder ran through the long body, bringing the breasts to point. Jodie reached for the blanket and pulled it nearly to her chin.

"Get her a glass of water. Give me the Colt." He waited until Jodie returned, then gave the Colt back to her. "Can you hear me?"

Her ribcage moved with a deep intake of breath. The dark lashes blinked twice.

The color of old jade, Bobby thought, and the pupils weren't exactly round. He took a half step back from the bed, holding out the glass of water. "You should probably drink this," he said. His own heart pounded like he'd just run a mile.

Jade eyes narrowed on his face, swept beyond to Jodie and the shotgun, then roved over the library. With a slow, controlled movement she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, the blanket pushed aside. She took the water and drank it in a series of long swallows.

"- - -?" she said.

Clearly a question, in no language he had ever heard. Bobby took the glass from her hand and shrugged. "Sorry."

Two more glasses of water and a flannel shirt later, their visitor was sitting cross-legged on the bed. She watched them intently, so much so that Bobby's creep factor had rise to levels of paranoia. To make the situation more uncomfortable, Jodie had turned the guns over to him, pulled up a chair and started talking at the woman.

"You're in Bobby Singer's house, at the salvage yard, just outside Sioux Falls, South Dakota. You fell from the sky in a rain of blackbirds . . ."

From there the monologue went on to who Jodie was, what she did for a living, and the fact she had an intimate relationship with Bobby Singer.

"She can't understand you," Bobby jumped in when she stopped for air. "All that because I like her breasts?"

"If she can't understand me, it doesn't matter," Jodie said. "If she can, then I've given her some reference points for behavior. You still think she could be an angel?"

"No," he said. "And not a demon, or human either. Something else."

"How can we find out?"

Bobby blew out a long breath. "Maybe there's something I can try. Castiel, Dean and Sam's angel friend. I could try to get his attention."

"Is there a down side? Is he a dick?" Jodie asked.

"Not so much." Bobby closed his eyes and tried to clear his head. He concentrated on remembering the moment in the kitchen when Sam had stumbled up from the basement with his soul in place, on his own overwhelmingly mixed emotions at seeing the boys holding on to each other. "Castiel. It's Bobby Singer. I understand if you're busy, but . . ."

"Bobby." Castiel's voice came from behind him. "I am busy. What do you need?"

"Holy crap." Jodie left the bedside and came to stand by his elbow. "Angels wear trenchcoats?"

Bobby took her arm and moved them both out of the way, leaving Castiel a clear view of the woman on the bed. "We've got a visitor, and I don't understand a word of what she says."

Castiel stepped toward the bed, frowning. He extended one hand.

"---?" The woman held up one of her hands, palm facing away from her body toward Castiel. She unfolded from the bed and stood.

Taller than Castiel by a couple of inches, Bobby noted. The flannel shirt barely covered her upper thighs, leaving her long legs clothed only in her own colors.

"How did she come here?" Castiel cocked his head and half-closed his eyes. "Enochian energy, very old. What have you been doing, Bobby SInger?"

"It was only a minor divination spell," he said defensively. "Nothing happened."

Castiel looked from the woman to him. "Nothing?" The air wavered, like fatally bad television reception, and he was gone.

"Coming and going, and going and coming," Jodie murmured. "Is that usual for angels?"

"Hell yes."

"Why have you drawn a gate in the basement?" Castiel was back. "What ritual did you use to activate it?" He held up a hand to forestall Bobby's next words. "Write it down for me."

Bobby found a scrap at the desk, wrote the words of the ritual and handed them to Castiel.

Castiel read the scrap, closed his hand over it. When he opened his fingers the paper was gone. "Fiat lux," he said. "It hasn't been done in hundreds of years. The gates were sealed."

"---!" Their guest raised her chin and stared Castiel down.

"She can't stay here. There will be problems." Slowly extending one finger Castiel stepped toward the woman.

She watched, warily, then lowered her chin. Castiel's finger touched the center of her forehead. There were no dramatic special effects, which Bobby rather expected. Both Castiel and the woman closed their eyes for a long minute, then the angel backed away.

"One of Jehovah's bully boys. Do you know me, creature of light?" She pulled her inches up to best advantage.

"Is that a joke?" Castiel asked. "I do not bear the name Lux, harpy."

"What name do you bear?"

"Castiel."

"Excuse me." Jodie waved a hand between them. "I'm Jodie Mills. This is Bobby Singer. Who _are_ you, and how is it you fell from the sky?"

Narrowed green eyes evaluated them. Bobby felt a shiver move along his spine.

"I am Kelano Lux. As to how I fell from the sky . . ." she glanced at Castiel. "Do you hear the tolling?"

"I do. The gate is opened, others will hear." Castiel moved uncomfortably. "It must be closed. This world, these humans . . ."

"The grandmothers told me all I need to know about the humans of this sphere," Kelano said. "Unwashed barbarian dicks. This is the last place I thought to seek my champion."

Jodie laughed, a quiet, low sound of genuine amusement. "I'm guessing she learned English from the angel, by way of Dean and Sam Winchester? I'm going to clear Bobby's kitchen table, and make a pot of coffee. It's nearly 3 a.m., caffeine wouldn't hurt. You two," she pointed at Kelano and Castiel, "take a seat. Bobby, you give me a hand."

Kelano sat. Castiel wandered about the kitchen. Neither accepted coffee.

Bobby explained about the dragons, grimoire, and his decision to use the divination spell.

Kelano snorted when he got to that part of the story. "Divination? You opened a gate with an old tuning spell." Kelano looked to Castiel. "I sense science as far as I can reach, and no magic except in this place. Even at last contact, this sphere was moving away from the arts. How is it this man could break the seals with a few old runes and common ritual?"

"Good question. How is it that you were poised to use the gate?"

Jodie looked between them. "All of this is very obscure to me. I'd appreciate a simple explanation of what you two are batting back and forth, without the tension."

Kelano turned and spat on the kitchen floor. "Dracs. I can smell them here."

"You smell the grimoire." Castiel looked between them. "I only know she is not a part of this natural world. Things sometimes move between spheres . . ."

"Yes." Kelano's voice was cold. "Sometimes things move between spheres. The Grandmothers lie dead, their bones turned to weapons. My home has become a place of foetid waste. Dracs enslave the men and women I was born to rule and protect, force them to dig in the earth, to die in their foundries. It was one of your kind, Castiel, who weakened the integrity between the spheres, who made it possible for the Dracs to find my world."

"He was punished. For that, and many other things." Castiel looked at his hands. "We had no way to know where the dragons went when they fled this world. They're not native here, either. I am sorry they found their way to your home."

Bobby saw Jodie's jaw clench. He knew the signs of imminent release of temper. He touched her arm, and felt some of the tension lessen in her muscles. "Cas. Please."

"You must have guessed, some of the monsters Dean and Sam, and you, have fought in recent years, are not creatures spawned by this earth," Castiel said.

"Are you talking aliens, or alternate dimensions, or just what?" Jodie asked.

Castiel frowned. "Like the Morton salt girl, but the farther you get away from the first mirror image, the more small differences occur in the image. These images never touch, and each image is complete unto itself. Each world is part of a universe complete unto itself. The number of these universes is without number, without end."

"How did the monsters get from their place to ours?" Jodie leaned forward, hanging on every word. "What Kelano said -- is Lucifer responsible?"

"When he fell, he drove his will, his energy into this world with so much force it pierced the nothing between spheres. He was trying to claim man's earth as his own. In the days before he was chained in the pit, Lucifer quested through the opened gates, seeking minions he could use in his new kingdom." Castiel bowed his head slightly toward Kelano. "After he was chained, we began closing the gates. One of my garrison's missions was to kill anything we came across that was not native. The dragons were tough, sly, and had acquired old magics from more than one earth. When we found what we thought was their last enclave, we also found and closed the last open gate. Behind them, after they ran."

"And they ran to Kelano's world?"

"They did." Raw grief sounded in her words. "We were unprepared for what they were. The Lux are strong and fierce, but not practiced at war. The Grandmothers, my sisters and I, my world had never seen the kind of horror the Drac inflict. There was no time to adapt, regroup and try again. The Lux have always been few. And our people had no chance at all."

Jodie yawned hugely and rubbed her eyes. "Sorry. It's late, and I'm tired. Castiel called you a harpy? Like in mythology?"

"I don't --?" Kelano looked to Castiel for clarification.

"Legends based on your people's visit to this world, before the gate was closed. Humans fabricated their own monsters from stories of that contact," Castiel explained. "You don't want to know the details."

"Ah. Reference my previous unwashed barbarian dick remark."

Bobby found himself the focus of her intense regard.

"We have our own magicians, Singer. They had located the gate, ascertained what it was, where it went, and nearly had it closed before the Drac poured through." Kelano sighed. "So close. Tonight I rode the wind above the shattered land because my magician, perhaps the only one left in my world, said omens foretold a gate would open and a prophesy might be fulfilled."

"I hate prophecies. Is your magician's name Chuck, by any chance?" Bobby saw Castiel twitch a little.

"Chuck?" She tried the name, shook her head. "I don't think anyone in my world has such a name."

"What prophesy?" Castiel asked. "Bobby may discount the importance of prophesy, I do not."

"It's about what you'd expect in a situation like mine," Kelano said, cynicism and bitterness clear in her voice. "The hatchery sybil pronounced it when I emerged, and it was the subject of debate at temple functions for the next half century. It's probably still inscribed on the temple stele, unless the Drac have ground it to dust." She took a deep breath. " _Kelano Lux will bring her people through darkness to light, by playing a game of Changes with only six tiles._ "

No one seemed to know what to say. Bobby heard Jodie yawn again. "Maybe we should get some sleep. Dean and Sam are coming in sometime tomorrow morning."

"Dean and Sam. These are your family?" Kelano asked.

"In a way." Castiel answered for Bobby. "I can watch while you sleep. First, though, I would like to know how you opened the gate. The sigils require the energy of death."

"Roasting chicken," Bobby said. "Fresh, not frozen. Unlike some people, I'm not prepared to shed blood."

"The carcass of a dead fowl would not provide the energy needed to open a gate." Castiel looked at him, looked at Jodie. He wavered, disappeared, reappeared. "You had sex in the panic room, next to the gate?"

Jodie flushed, but answered before Bobby could open his mouth. "Yes. We did. So?"

Kelano laughed, a musical sound that brought a glare from Castiel. "These two were able to generate enough power to open a gate? I should have guessed."

"How?"

Kelano shrugged. "I should be able to slip back through the gate, and they can close it in the same manner it was opened."

"Bobby. At what time did you begin the ritual?" Castiel asked.

"Maybe 1:45, 1:50," Bobby said.

"And how long did you have sex?"

Bobby rolled his eyes. "How should I know? We were sleeping for a while."

"About an hour and a half," Jodie said. "We took our time."

"How is this relevant?" His neck felt hot, and Kelano's amused inspection wasn't making him feel less like a kid caught in the back seat of his father's car.

"Our best chance at closing the gate will be to reconstruct its opening. Place, time, manner of raising energy should be consistent."

"You're an angel," Jodie said. "You just told us angels have closed gates in the past. Why can't you do it?"

"I never participated in a closing of the ways, my job was to kill things, clear the way to the gate," Castiel said. "To close a gate took the combined strength of two of our garrison."

"You don't have a friend you can ask for help?" Jodie asked.

"That would be a very bad idea." Castiel looked at Kelano. "They should sleep now."

"You'll keep an eye on her?" Bobby asked. "We'll use the boys' room upstairs. She can use the bed in the library."

"She doesn't need to sleep. I will take her outside, and you and Sheriff Mills will stay in the library. Under no circumstances return to the panic room, separately or together." Castiel gestured with his hand toward the door. "Walk with me, Kelano Lux."

Kelano stood and stretched, an action that pulled the shirt up way too far.

"Don't you have an old pair of Dean's sweats somewhere? I'm going to find her something to cover her legs. Come on, Kel. I don't know what your world is like, but the men here can't think when they're looking at naked female bits," Jodie said. "And most women don't like their men looking at other women's naked bits." She shooed Kelano from the room.

Bobby grinned at Castiel. "On a mission." He sobered. "Is there anything you want to tell me while the distaff side is in the fitting room?"

"The gate must be closed, as soon as possible. The dragons Dean and Sam met will eventually find this place if it isn't. They are the ones who stayed behind when their brothers left. A chance to reunite, and bring them back here . . ." Castiel's eyes looked haunted, unsure. "When we moved beyond the prophesy of the End of Days, the balance between good and evil, light and dark was undone. You and Sheriff Mills should not have been able to accomplish what you did. You must have a very deep bond with her. For sex to turn to the kind of energy used by the gates, you both must have let go of self, metaphorically have both died when reaching orgasm."

"Never. Never repeat that to anyone else." Bobby put his hands over his eyes. "What now? Dean and Sam will be here today. They don't know about Jodie."

"It's time they did."

Somehow he slept so soundly he missed Jodie climbing over him. The library bed was tight for sleeping two. He had insisted she spoon against his back, as if his own body could shield her from anything that came during the night. He didn't explain his reasoning, but suspected she understood.

It was full light. The smell of coffee came from the kitchen.

Jodie met him with a mug of black coffee. "I had toast. Want some?"

"Not yet." He sipped the hot liquid, letting his mind wake up. "Cas and Kel?"

"I think they've been standing in the middle of the yard since we went to bed. Just standing." Jodie shook her head. "I grabbed a shower."

"You got the shotgun and Colt?"

"Right here." Jodie reached down beside the table and lay the shotgun between them. "I'll be fine. Take a shower. I get the feeling it's going to be a long day."

His woman had the gift of understatement, Bobby thought. He took the coffee with him into the bathroom. By the time he had showered and dressed in clean clothes, finished one cup of coffee, he felt considerably more alert. As he came through the library, voices in the kitchen brought him to a full, paralyzed, dead stop.

"Sheriff?" a woman's voice purred. "Badge, gun, handcuffs, uniform? A real working sheriff?"

"What kind of doctor are you?" Jodie's voice was edged with pre-interrogation focus. "Medical, or is it one of those useless academic degrees?"

"Oh, I have far more than one useless academic degree."

Bobby unfroze his legs and got to the kitchen as fast as he could. "What the hell?"

The kitchen was crowded. Castiel and Kelano stood in front of the stove, nearly identical expressions of interest on their faces. Jodie stood by the table, hands on her hips, glaring down at Helene Visyak, who sat with her legs crossed, swinging one foot as she always did when she was _really_ enjoying herself.

"Bobby." Helene stood and extended her hands. "How long has it been since you ran out on me?"

"Not nearly long enough." He submitted to the brush of her lips on each cheek, then moved away. "You can't have the grimoire."

"I only want to look at it," she wheedled. "Were you able to translate all of it?"

"Have you met everybody?" Bobby shot a desperate look of entreaty at Castiel.

"Yes. You were always able to surprise me, but this," she gestured at Castiel and Kelano, "exceeds your best effort. An angel and a harpy? A dragon grimoire?" She made an exaggerated shivering movement with her shoulders. "Better than old times."

"Hey! Bobby, we're home!" Dean's voice carried clearly from the front door. "Why is there a rental car outside? Why are there dead birds all over the yard? The Impala's messed up, I'm doing some work on her."

"Balls." Bobby stepped into the library. "Through here. We've got company."

They moved from the kitchen to the library. Jodie settled in the extra chair near the desk, beside him. Helene, Dean and Sam brought in kitchen chairs, and Kelano chose to sit cross-legged on the bed. Castiel stood between Dean and Sam. After his fumbling start, Jodie surprised him by taking point on the conversation. She explained, with admirable briefness, his decision to use the divination spell, Kelano's resulting appearance, and call to Castiel. Bobby watched Dean's face, watched the resigned anger develop, then fade.

"It wasn't much of a chance," Bobby said. "And Jodie was backing me up with the shotgun."

"What did you use as a sacrifice?" Helene's foot was still swinging. "You activated more than a divination spell. It takes a lot of energy to enable a physical manifestation."

"I didn't sacrifice anything." Bobby carefully did not look at Sam. "Used a dead chicken."

When Helene stopped laughing, she wiped her eyes. "You didn't. There's simply no way . . ." Her lips pressed together, her eyes crinkled at the corners like she'd just bit into a slice of lemon. She looked between him and Jodie.

"It was accidental, not intentional," he blurted.

"What?" Sam was lost. "I get you wanted to find out more about the Mother, and tried a divination spell. Does she," he pointed at Kelano, "know something about the Mother? Is that why she appeared after you did the spell?"

"That's a good question." Castiel turned his head to study Kelano. "Bobby doesn't want to tell you and Dean that he's having sex with Sheriff Mills, that they had sex in the panic room before he completed the spell, and that sex is what created sufficient energy to open a gate between the spheres."

"Also that sex will be necessary to close the gate." Kelano's smile was sharply amused.

"Dude." Dean sounded impressed, almost respectful. "That wasn't a joke, when you said you were banging the sheriff?"

"Castiel." Kelano nearly jumped from the bed. She threw her head back, eyes closed, as if listening. "What do you hear?"

"Shit." Castiel closed his own eyes. "They've opened the kennels. We don't have much time."

"What are our options?" Kelano crossed the room to stand in front of him.

"Cas? What's happening?" Dean asked. "Bobby?"

"Hellhounds are coming. We have an open gate in the basement that must be closed before it can be taken," Castiel answered. "You can fight with me, Kelano Lux, but they will be vulnerable."

"Why do demons care about an open gate?" Sam asked.

"Opportunity. The possibility of taking another world for their own use," Castiel said.

Kelano turned around slowly, giving each of them a narrow-eyed inspection. "Six tiles," she murmured. "At the temple of Luxaur there are tablets of stone the Grandmothers were given when they visited this world. The tablets contain the story of origins, the list of begats. I was not old enough to be allowed to read the lists, but the list begins with the name of _She who Begat_. If you come to my home and help me remove the Dracs from my world, I will give you the tablets."

"Your prophesy?" Castiel gestured around the room. "Dean, Sam, Bobby, Sheriff Mills, Dr. Visyak and myself? You wish to take us all through the gate, and close it behind us? To fight for you?"

"Yes. And there's not much time to make a decision." Kelano stripped off the shirt and sweatpants. "Singer, bring the grimoire, to keep it safe. Take the humans downstairs. The iron room will buy us some time."

Helene touched Dean's arm. "Where is the sword of Bruncvik?"

"Trunk of the Impala."

"Get everyone downstairs. I'll get the sword." Bobby reached into the desk, found the grimoire. He wrapped the handkerchief around it as well as he could.

"Here." Jodie scooped her bag off the floor the desk. "Put it in here."

"Don't set it down." Bobby hoped she understood the roll of his eyes toward Helene.

Jodie nodded and winked. She slung the bag over her shoulder and hefted the shotgun. "Dean, Sam. Let's go."

From somewhere far too close, a chorus of baying shrieks clawed at Bobby's eardrums. He'd seen what those things had done to Dean's body. Gooseflesh covered his arms at the thought of raking, tearing fangs.

"Let us go first." Castiel walked swiftly to the front door. "Retrieve the sword, then get to the panic room. We will follow."

Kelano pushed past Castiel, into the yard. She fell onto her hands and knees, planting her palms, fingers outspread, into the hard packed dirt.

Bobby stopped, his mission momentarily taking second place to observing Kelano's transformation.

It happened swiftly. Her body wavered, like Castiel's did when he disappeared. It was like trying to see through a mirage in the desert, Bobby thought. A huge amount of dirt seemed to crumble around her, and disappear. The creature that came upright in the center of the small crater looked nothing like the woman who had been there moments ago, yet Bobby knew he would recognize Kelano even if he hadn't witnessed the transformation.

 _Beautiful,_ was his first thought. _Dragon? Dragonette?_ was his second. She stood upright on two legs, gaining mass and height. The colors and designs of her tattoos had expanded along the ridge of razor-edged wings, and the colors seemed, if anything, more vivid. Her entire body was scaled, including smaller, streamlined breasts. Her fingers and toes ended in retractable claws that gleamed silver.

The baying sounded closer.

"Bobby. Sword." Castiel passed him, and stood next to Kelano. "Hurry."

Bobby ran to the Impala.

There was a moment of quiet as he threw open the trunk and groped for the sword. He found it in a leather bag with a number of other smaller blades. As he pulled the bag out of the mass of entangling weaponry and raised his arm to shut the trunk, a piercing squeal sounded behind him, so close Bobby nearly fell as he spun around on his heel.

"Run!"

Castiel and Kelano stood back to back, angel sword, claws and wings slicing through seemingly empty air. Black blood fell like rain around them, drenching Castiel's coat and Kelano's scales.

Bobby ran, without any desire to pull a Lot's wife. He sprinted through the hallway and down the basement stairs, pulling in huge gasps of air. The bag over his arm had substantial weight, and pounded against leg as he ran, threatening to trip him.

"Cas?" Dean waited inside the panic room. He held the demon knife in his hand.

"Killing things." Bobby bent over and tried to catch his breath.

"If we shut that door, we're trapped." Sam came to stand beside his brother. "So we either go with the harpy, or we die here?"

"Simple choices," Bobby agreed. He straightened and met Jodie's eyes across the divination circle. "You up for a road trip?"

"I, for one, do not plan to become a chew toy." Helene smoothed a tendril of hair away from her eyes. "But how do you plan to hold it open long enough for seven people to cross? This gate may be receptive, but it's not gaping wide."

"I'll go with you." Jodie looked past him, out the doorway. "Something's coming."

The something was Castiel, dripping black fluid. His clothing hung in tatters. He let Kelano slip past him, then slammed the door behind her.

Kelano had returned to her naked human shape. The colors of her tattoos blazed, and much of her skin appeared bruised where there were no designs. Her burgundy hair was wetly black, slicked back from her face. She pointed overhead at the devil's trap and ventilation shaft.

"First breach point," she said. "Will you agree to my offer?"

"Yes," Bobby said, hearing Jodie echo him. Helene followed, then Dean and Sam.

"Castiel?" Kelano stood in the center of the circle. "Time is short. Without you, they are lost."

"Yes." Castiel looked around the room. "I will try, but I doubt my ability to hold the gate for passage."

"Not necessary." Kelano pointed at the sigils surrounding the center of the circle. "Quickly. You are my tiles of Change. Dean, stand there. You are my fool. Singer, you are next -- keep that bag tight against your body. You are my magician.

"Jodie, my priestess. Sam, my prince. Helene, my scribe." She held out her hand to Castiel. "Castiel, my hierophant. Join me at the center."

Overhead, something shrieked and tore at woodwork.

Kelano pulled the remaining shreds of Castiel's clothing away. "I will hold the gate, you will move us through. Take what strength you need from me." She pulled him close to her body, one hand in the small of his back, the other at the back of his head. She touched her forehead against his, then kissed him, long and deep. Castiel stood still against her, then pulled back and lay the angel sword between their feet. He straightened and placed his hands above her waist. Their lips met again, Castiel seeming to take the initiative in this kiss.

Dust and debris filtered down around them as what sounded like a berserk chainsaw harried the metal above. Bobby saw Jodie's hand tighten on the strap of her purse. He held her eyes and nodded reassurance.

"There isn't the necessary time to do this properly." Kelano broke from the kiss, pushing her breasts into Castiel's chest. "You're going to get raw power from me, with little control." She swiveled her head around the circle. "Singer. When I tell you, speak the words you used before."

Bobby nodded. From the corner of his eye he saw Dean look up and raise the demon knife, and heard Sam say something quiet to his brother.

"I see the outline of the gate. I see where you came through." Castiel took Kelano's mouth, moving his hand from her back to the rondure of her hip. Kelano made a trill of sound and met his kiss fiercely. The movement of their bodies altered their stance in the circle, and for the first time Bobby got a complete view of her back. Her markings were stylized wings, traced across her shoulders, curving down to her lower back.

The sweat from his sprint down the stairs abruptly cooled and turned clammy on his skin. "It's getting colder."

Kelano pulled back from the kiss again, staring into Castiel's eyes. The shadow of the devil's trap overhead shook violently. "Singer. Say the words."

"Absit omen," Bobby said, as drops of black blood fell around them. "Ab origin -- ad infinitum -- ex umbra in solem. Genēthḗtō phôs -- fiat lux."

Around the circle Bobby saw breath turn to fog as the temperature plummeted. Castiel's hands cupped Kelano's face as her hands dropped to grip his hips and hold their bodies together. Their mouths barely touched as they held eye contact. A cloud of steam rose from their limbs, and spread over the floor of the circle.

Kelano shuddered, arching against Castiel so it looked like the wings marked on her skin were about to unfurl.

There was a sense of rushing wind, dark vapors, and silence so utter and complete that when Castiel shouted a word, Bobby felt like his ear was next to a gong someone -- someone like Thor -- had just taken a swing at.

The transition from one place to another took only the blink of an eye. Bobby registered the visual equivalent of smearing a wet hand across a dark water color painting, then the panic room was gone.

They stood on a vast, empty plain of tumbled rock, under a black sky. A small, irregularly shaped moon hung high overhead.

"The Eagle has landed," Dean muttered. "We're not in South Dakota anymore."

"Bobby," Jodie came to stand close at his side, "Castiel doesn't look well."

"Cas?" Dean and Sam moved nearly together toward the center of the circle, where Castiel lay unmoving.

Kelano stepped away. "He will recover. He is very strong, that one." She staggered, sat down with an ungraceful sprawl of legs and arms.

"Kel." Jodie ran to her and knelt beside her. "Are you okay?"

"There are more energy efficient ways to accomplish what we just did." Kelano almost seemed to smile at Jodie. "That was very draining."

"You closed the gate?" Bobby looked at the ground around them. There _was_ a circle here, almost identical to the one in the panic room. Faint markings reflected moonlight in places.

"Closed, yes. When we have killed all the Drac, you must return and wipe the slate clean on your floor."

"I like the sound of that," Bobby said. "The returning part. Killing the Drac leaves me a little colder. Exactly how many Drac are we talking about?"

"Not now." Kelano took Jodie's hand and stood. "My people watch this place. Someone will be here soon. We'll need to be hidden before day comes."

Helene stepped up beside him, her face turned to the moon. Her expression was one of pure joy. "I did it," she whispered. "Travel through a gate. It's amazing. We used to talk about exploration like this, Bobby."

Amazing. The air smelled, tasted different. There was a bitter mineral aftertaste on the back of his tongue. "Before I knew what I know now," Bobby answered. He wasn't immune to the pull of adventure, the strangeness around them. But he knew from hard-won experience there would be nothing grand and romantic coming their way in this place.

"Don't let it cloud your mind, Hel. Remember the Russian catacombs?" When her euphoria over a trove of relics had nearly killed them both. Bobby saw the memory sober her, a little.

"You always were, and still remain, a monumental buzz kill." Her voice was soft, affectionate.

"And right." He couldn't suppress the frisson of excitement and adrenalin that shot through his blood. He grinned at her. "Once more into the catacombs, Hel?"

"You know I hate that nickname." She extended a hand and touched his lower lip. "So. You and the Sheriff?"

Bobby captured her hand and moved it, but didn't release her fingers. "Yeah. Jodie and I are together. And I know that's not a problem for you."

She laughed, retrieved her hand. "It's not, but it could be. I always knew you would be one of those men who improved with age."

He let his eyes linger on her face in the moonlight, remembering the best of their early association. "You're as beautiful as you were then, Helene. And just as devious."

"Bobby Singer." She laughed, a short uncontrolled burst of enjoyment. "It's the moonlight of an alien world. But I appreciate the compliment." She turned to look at the rest of their company. "I like her, Bobby. She doesn't take any shit."

"That's the truth."

Jodie remained close to Kelano's side, as if ready to steady her. Castiel was sitting up now, with Dean and Sam on either side. A change in Kelano's body and stance brought Bobby's attention quickly back to her.

"Hel. Come on. Get closer to the others." He didn't know if it was a necessary precaution, but it was better to err on the side of paranoia then get slaughtered unaware. They stood next to Kelano and Jodie as Castiel got to his feet.

"Don't fear. They are mine."

Dark shadow seemed to elongate from the ground outside the circle, growing into two cloaked figures. One figure stepped close to Kelano and went down on one knee. A string of gibberish followed, the only word of which Bobby understood was "lux."

"Follow," Kelano said, looking around at them. "Quietly as you are able."

"Dean. May I have your jacket?" Castiel's nakedness had not disappeared into suit and trenchcoat. "There are some powers I cannot use here."

"Here." Bobby took off his flannel shirt. He shivered as chill air hit his arms below the sleeves of his t-shirt. Cool, but not cool enough to bother him once they started walking, he thought. "This will cover a little more than the jacket."

The trek under the fading moon was nothing short of a forced march. Ground underfoot varied between broken rock, gravel, and pools of choking dust that, when disturbed underfoot, rose to envelop them in silty clouds. Kelano cursed each time this happened, barking short words at their guides. Cool light began to filter through the dark after a while, making Bobby wish for night to return. The bleak gray landscape seemed completely devoid of life, a moonscape of uninhabitable ruin.

When the rocks became larger and more unbroken, and the first of the scraggly bushes and trees appeared, the march also turned from flat to incline. Bobby felt the backs of his legs, and knees complain. A quick evaluation of the rest showed that Dean, Sam and Jodie appeared unaffected by the march. In spite of his lack of shoes, Castiel moved nearly normally, although the sporadic sight of his bare ass gave an element of burlesque to their progress. Helene kept pace, but she was trying not to limp.

"Haven't been in the field for a while?" Bobby dropped into step beside her.

"Pebble in my shoe," she said, shortly. "Kelano said to keep quiet."

A long, rising howl startled them motionless.

"Hellhounds? Did they follow us through the gate?" Dean asked the question for all of them.

"Hounds, but mine." Kelano threw back her head and howled back into the night. "We're nearly home."

The outskirts of the -- settlement? village? -- Bobby was unsure what to categorize the overhead camo-nets strung between the trees, and the primitive skin tents beneath -- showed people were in the area, but no bodies were in evidence. Their guide led them to a pile of boulders, and pulled back a woven mat of moss and grass. Bobby had to bend nearly double to navigate the narrow, downward passage. Fortunately, the ground underfoot turned to rock after a minute, and the tunnel widened to terminate in a low ceilinged chamber lit by myriad small, clean-burning candles. Wooden planks supported the sides and ceiling of the dirt and rock enclosure.

More cloaked people emerged from another opening on the chamber's far side, at least Bobby thought they were people. The head to toe robes covered all by their eyes, which looked human. The group of three fell on their knees in front of Kelano.

"Lux." The low word seemed to vibrate through the air.

Kelano answered, and one of the people stood to face her.

"Do you understand them?" Dean asked Castiel. "Where's the universal translator when you need it?"

"Yes. She's asking for a -- status report." Castiel hesitated. "It seems she's been gone for nearly ten days."

"Time differential?" Helene asked. "How long was she at your house, Bobby?"

"Maybe 10 hours." That was a pretty good differential, roughly one day here for every hour that passed at home. "Not necessarily a time differential though, it might have something to do with using the gate. Cas --?"

"I don't know. I have no more experience here than you do."

He sounded upset, Bobby thought. "Sorry Cas. You said you can't use some of your powers?"

"While I remain an angel of the Lord, the aspect of God in this place wears a different face, and this aspect is served by the Lux, rather than the hosts of heaven." Castiel's voice held an odd quality of care as he chose his words.

"So Kelano is the equivalent of an angel here?" Jodie asked.

"It's complicated. Yes. No." Castiel sighed. "For the purpose of your understanding, yes."

Kelano ended the conversation with her people by waving a hand. Two of the cloaked figures took off running back the way they had entered. The standing figure remained. "My people will bring you clothes, Castiel. And what refreshments we can offer. We can talk in this place, and plan. This is my magician, and the commander of my Luxguard -- Baird."

Darkly weathered fingers loosened the fold of cloth covering the man's face. His eyes swept over the group, stopping to hold Bobby's eyes with his own. Dimly Bobby heard exclamations from around him. The man's skin was darker, the long brown hair pulled back in a braid that showed more silver at the temples, and the beard was fuller, also touched with more white at the corners of his mouth. But the face was, unmistakably, his own.


	2. PRIESTESS

Author: **Glinda**   
TItle: **Rough Magic**   
Rating: **NC17**

 **PRIESTESS**

"Find a Babel fish?" Dean suggested.

"I'm going to put _something_ in your ear, if you don't shut up," Bobby growled.

He had a hard time keeping his eyes off the man sitting across from them. Jodie couldn't help but notice. She was just as intrigued by Bobby 2.0.

There were differences. She would never mistake which Bobby was which, if they were put in front of her with identical haircuts, identical clothing. Baird's eyes were darker, lined from harder life. He held himself differently, maybe more like a high-ranking solider, Jodie thought, simultaneously authoritative and subordinate. It was a vibe she had _never_ got from Bobby.

On Bobby's left, Helene leaned toward Baird, her lips parted, locked onto every word and movement. Jodie grinned at the sight. She'd never had many women friends. Weighing her own past actions, Jodie thought it was probably her own fault for not trying harder to get out of the work routine, to move a little past her own comfort zone. On first glance, Helene's polished exterior and sly air of amused sexuality seemed to advertise a woman Jodie had little, or nothing, in common with. On second glance, Jodie was beginning to suspect there was more to Helene Visyak than academic sex kitten.

Dean and Sam seemed to take finding themselves in a hole in the ground, on another world, all in stride. If only a bare half of what Bobby had told her about the things they'd seen was true, this hunt probably verged on boring routine for them.

Three men, hoods down and faces uncovered, had returned with water, unleavened crackers dusted with herbs, and braided rugs to spread on the dirt floor. Kelano sat next to Baird, conducting a rapid conversation that altered his body language from wary to angry. After witnessing the apparent ritual and reverence implied by the constant kneeling when people approached Kelano, Jodie was reassured to see the obvious, close dynamic between them. Whatever Baird was saying, it was bluntly critical, and Kelano took no offense.

"I could try," Castiel said, in answer to Dean's complaint about not understanding the language. "I don't know that I would succeed, here." He had returned Bobby's flannel shirt and dressed in a tunic and trousers, covered by a faded, sand colored robe constructed like a djellaba. "Kelano Lux," he interposed when Baird paused in his harangue to take a deep breath. "They need to achieve understanding of your tongue."

"Haven't you been listening? I'm working on it," she said. "Stubborn old man. He can, he will help me with this. The Lux have no gift of tongues, as you do."

"That's the only thing he's chewing your leg over?" Bobby asked skeptically.

Kelano rolled her eyes. "I am trying to entice him with the promise he can expound at length to all of you, as soon as he does his job." She turned back to Baird and apparently repeated the instruction verbatim.

"Noyo." Baird turned his head and bellowed over his shoulder.

"I wonder how complete the resemblance to Bobby is," Helene said. "Could you ask him to take off his robe? If I could see him naked . . ."

"Stop it, Hel," Bobby growled. "People, not lab rats. We've had this conversation before."

She looked slightly offended, but also amused. "My interest is more personal than scientific."

Jodie touched Bobby's arm, giving silent support. He was tense and uncomfortable, but she thought he was coping pretty well. If she found herself facing a duplicate, Jodie wasn't sure she could react with equal calm. She _was_ sure she didn't want to know anything about Helene Visyak's implied familiarity with Bobby in the buff.

A small boy entered, precariously balancing a tray covered with pots, delicate paint brushes, a plate of silver pins and what looked like primitive needle nose pliers.

"Singer. Sit here." Kelano patted the ground in front of Baird's rug.

"I'm going to be the guinea pig?" Reluctantly Bobby moved closer to Baird.

"Sit sideways, keep your eyes on me," Kelano said. "First he will pierce the top of your ear."

Jodie saw Baird pull a small metal awl out of his robes, take a firm grip on Bobby's ear, and push the tool through skin and cartilage.

"Dammit!" Bobby didn't jerk his head away, although the tendons on his neck stood out.

"Don't move," Kelano said. "He's threading a silver wire through now, and finishing the ends so it won't slide out. Next he will paint the sigil of communication."

"Is that henna?" Helene asked. "I can't see from here."

"Henna? A vegetable dye, yes, this is close."

The brush in Baird's hand moved with small, delicate strokes, leaving a reddish brown stain behind Bobby's ear. Jodie saw the utter concentration on his face as he worked, saw his eyes change as he touched the newly drawn sigil and mouth a single, inaudible word.

"Helene, you're next," Kelano said.

"Don't bother, It doesn't work," Bobby growled. "---."

Baird raised his eyebrows. He looked at Kelano.

"Bobby. It works." Helene was eager to trade places with him. She batted her eyelashes at Baird.

"I wonder if I should warn him." Bobby returned to his seat, gingerly feeling the wire in his ear.

"He looks like he can take care of himself," Jodie said quietly. "He's a lot like you, I think."

"Jodie." Kelano summoned her. "Your turn."

Jodie watched Baird's face as she sat in front of him, noting the tightness around his mouth and jaw as he looked at her. Her stomach turned, clenching low with the feeling she often got looking at Bobby, just before they made love. He turned her head away, gently, and pierced her ear with a quick jab.

It hurt, Jodie thought, but the pain faded quickly. She felt the wire go in, then the slow, wet strokes of the brush against her skin. She shivered, feeling her nipples harden and her heart speed up. She heard him say a word, felt her ears pop, then . . .

"You ask much of me, Kelano Lux." Baird's voice had Bobby's deep tones, but different cadences.

"I always have. Change places with Dean, Jodie."

When Dean moved back toward his seat and Sam rose to take his turn, Baird held up his hand.

"Have you weighed his heart? Did the Goddess tell you it's safe to trust him?"

"The Goddess talks to you more often than she talks to me," Kelano said, with bitterness. "Prophesy and chance arranged for me to find all of them. Weigh him yourself, if you must. I still manage to take a few things on faith."

Baird's eyes tried to bore a hole into Sam. After a minute he shrugged, and waved a hand. He worked quickly, Jodie noticed, trying not to touch Sam any more than he had to.

"So. I have you here." Kelano looked around the circle. "I know you had little choice. No one wishes to be mauled by hounds. Therefore, I won't hold you to any obligation. If you choose not to become involved in our fight, I'll give you what assistance I can to help recover the tablets from Luxaur, and get you home again."

"What have you promised?" Baird groaned. "You will kill us all, and for what?"

"My honor." Kelano waved her arm around her. "Our honor."

Baird ignored her. "She is the last, the only Lux to survive the Drac. If she dies without heir, this world will continue the slow death, until humans return to an existence of debased animal life. For six nights before I struck a tuning vibration at the gate in the desert, and told her to ride the wind overhead, the Goddess visited me in dream. She said our chance is now, and that chance depended on aid from the source of our trouble."

"The Drac came through a gate from our home," Jodie said. "The angels closed it behind them, Castiel said."

"Now you want us to assist in their removal." Castiel considered. "Drac are very tough."

"I killed one," Sam said. "With the dragon sword. It wasn't very tough with steel between its ribs."

"But getting access to those ribs was a party," Dean reminded.

"You killed a Drac." Baird stared at Sam. "Well done. Only Lux Grandmothers and the sisters have killed Drac on this world. No man has managed the feat."

"A dragon sword is a special weapon," Helene said. "A few were made on our world, quench hardened in the blood of dead dragons. And Sam took it in manform -- which I'm guessing isn't the form the Grandmothers had to battle."

"No. They were winged, and breathing fire," Baird said heavily.

"I want to make it back home," Jodie said, breaking the short silence, "and I don't know how much help I could be in a fight of this magnitude. But I'm willing to do whatever you need, Kel. I would fight for you, your people and your home." She felt Bobby's hand close over her fingers and squeeze.

"I guess that makes two of us," Bobby said. "Your original offer still seems workable."

With a swirl of robes, Baird was on his feet, disappearing through the back entrance.

Kelano looked after him. "He won't be gone long. It's better this way. There are things I have to say that will bring thunder from his chest." She smiled wearily. "I stink of hellhound blood and desert sand. This isn't the way I thought to . . . " she trailed off. "Jodie, Singer, thank you."

"We're along for the ride, too." Dean punched Sam's shoulder. "Right?"

"Yes." Sam frowned. "There's more you need to tell us, isn't there? Why is Baird so upset?"

"Kel -- Bobby and Baird are versions of the same person, in different worlds?" Jodie saw her nod affirmation. "Are there copies of the rest of us here?"

Kelano closed her eyes and bowed her head. When she looked up again, her face gave away no emotion. "I have no human under my care who matches Helene, nor do I have a match for Castiel's vessel. Your match, Jodie, was killed several years ago in a press gang sweep by Drac guard. Dean's match died shortly after he reached the age of manhood."

"And Sammy?" Dean leaned forward, pressing. "Does Sam have a double?"

"Drac Regent Samal currently resides in the defiled temple at Luxaur. After the Drac are all dead, I will rip his heart and genitals from his body, and scatter his remains across every continent of my world. I swear this with my life." Kelano was on her feet, the colors on her skin alive and squirming.

Sam's face had gone white as skim milk. "Do you have demons here?"

"No. Not as you mean. But there are bloodlines, like Baird's, that carry special abilities. Samal drinks Drac blood. No man was ever supposed to have the power this gives him."

"What else," Jodie said. "What else are you finding it difficult to say?" She felt, deep in her bones, Kelano's resistance and denial.

With a sigh, Kelano held her hands wide. "Jodie, Yosieh was Baird's woman. Your double. He finds your presence -- distressing. Dean, your double was murdered by his brother Samal."

"Bratricide." Dean shot Sam a look of mock suspicion. "Mirror Sammy sounds like a real douche."

"I've strayed from what I need to discuss with Castiel. As much as Jodie's presence upsets Baird, the idea that I'm going to my death without an heir upsets him more. He knows my duty even better than I. If I go to war now, even if my sacrifice rids the world of the Drac, my people will die." Kelano sank cross-legged on the rug. "The Lux aren't human. We can look similar, but our Luxform is more true. Lux are all female. In order to reproduce our bodies take part of our own genetic material and forms a soft egg. If the egg is never quickened, it will never develop. I hold two such eggs," Kelano touched her abdomen. "This is unusual. When I came of age, my body formed the first egg. After the Grandmothers and sisters were killed by the Drac, my body formed a second egg."

"If you don't have males, then how --?" Helene asked, with obvious interest.

"The Goddess provides. Our bodies are compatible with humans, and sex is the stimulus needed to conceive. But no genetic material is exchanged, only energy." She stared at Castiel. "Most humans don't make it through a mating, although there have been survivors. It's one reason there have always been so few Lux. While many are willing and eager to give their lives in such a ritual, most Lux did not find such a taking easy."

"You want me to quicken the eggs." Castiel's voice sounded weary.

"Yes. I've already felt how strong you are," Kelano said. "I don't want to kill one of my people to do this."

"Lately, everybody gets laid but me," Dean said. "The universe is upside down."

"Shut up." Jodie glared at him. "Sometimes a joke is not the answer to a tense situation."

"Yes," Castiel said.

"Thank you." Kelano bowed her head for a long minute, then looked up. "Baird tells me there have been patrols through the shattered land during the time since the gate was activated. The Drac have some feeling for the energies used. We need to move quickly, but carefully. My people will provide robes and the equipment you will need." She stood and held out her hand. "Castiel."

Jodie watched them go, aware of an ache in her heart she couldn't explain. She moved against Bobby, and found the comfort of his arm around her. "Here's a promise. If we get home in one piece, I'll play Annie Oakley for you."

His fingers took her chin and tilted her face up for a quick kiss. "You don't ever have to play anything for me. Jodie Mills is all I need."

"If we weren't underground on a strange world with Sam and Dean watching you kiss me, I'd rip your clothes off right this minute." It had taken her years to find the sweet, generous, warm heart of this man. WIthout loss and the hard, strange turns of life, Jodie knew the thing they had would never have existed. But to consider what she would be like without him, now, was an impossible exercise.

"Hold that thought." Bobby kept his arm around her, molding her against his side. "When we get home, I'll bring it up."

 

Two young women and two young men came with clothing, footwear and accessories. Softly gathered trousers and sleeveless tunics were worn under the robes, belted with looped leather belts that provided a place for knife sheaths and other implements. Sandals were offered, but everyone except Helene kept their own sneakers and boots. The two women held up a piece of coarse fabric, screening Jodie and Helene from sight as they changed. They showed great interest in their underwear. When Jodie asked what they used for bras, the women laughed and pointed at a length of cloth.

"They wrap their breasts," Helene said. She discarded her bra and demonstrated without hesitation. "It gives the female profile here a more subtle emphasis."

"I feel like Lawrence of Arabia," Sam said, when they were alone again.

"I feel like I'm wearing somebody's bathrobe." Dean pulled at his garment.

"You all look yummy." Helene gave Dean a hand straightening the outer sash that held the robes closed. "Very dashing."

"You too," Dean said, sneaking a look past the top of Helene's head, in Bobby's direction.

"We should get some rest while we can." Bobby frowned equally at Dean and Helene. "I get the feeling once we start moving again, we won't get much chance to sleep."

They settled on the rugs. Jodie badly wanted to curl into Bobby's arms, but contented herself with laying so their heads nearly touched. It was quiet, and warm enough in the chamber. The nearly smokeless candles burned lower, one or two guttering into darkness. Jodie shut her eyes, just for a minute, and felt sleep overwhelm her determination to stay alert.

 

When she woke, the ground felt very hard under her back. Jodie blinked her eyes at the two candles still burning. They were on a different world, with angels and dragons, and people who looked just like them . . .

Baird was on the rug where he and Kelano had sat before. He held a handful of large, rectangular objects, carefully placing them on the floor in front of him.

Jodie rolled to her feet. She approached him slowly, stopping to sit a short distance away. "Kel says I look like someone you lost." She kept her voice low.

He looked up, sharply. A wry, half-smile touched the corners of his lips. "You speak like her as well. Very direct, my Yosieh was. But never direct enough to give Kelano Lux a familiar name."

Jodie absorbed this. "Well, I come from a place where God uses the name Chuck on occasion. We're kind of an informal people."

Baird nodded. "Do you know this game?"

"Game?" Jodie looked more closely at the rectangles. Roughly six by eight inches, each wooden tile was covered with a riot of pattern and color on one side, and a single sigil in the center of the reverse side. "I guess the closest visual reference I can think of would be tarot cards."

"It's Change," Baird said. "A two person game, or sometimes a magician's tool to cast for possibilities. Will you play?"

"Tell me what to do." Jodie watched him pick up the already placed tiles and rapidly restack them into a pile. He took two more stacks of tiles from a cloth bag at his side, and placed all three stacks between them.

"It would take some time to teach you. For now, let's see what message we would be dealt." Baird picked up the first pile. "The ten messengers: the queen, the fool, the magician, the prince, the priestess, the scribe, the hierophant, the judge, the sybil, and death." He lay five tiles for each of them, face down. He picked up the second stack. "The ten qualifiers: the farmer, the weaver, the smith, the bard, the stone mason, the recluse, air, water, fire and earth." Upon each of the first squares he placed a tile from the second stack. He pushed the third stack aside. "These have numerical values. For now, we won't need them."

"Kel's prophesy said something about a game of Change," Jodie said.

"Indeed. Choose from my set, three of the five." Baird watched her fingers waver between the tiles. "Just touch the ones you choose."

Jodie touched the last three sets, self-consciously.

Baird removed the other two sets. One by one he turned the tiles, keeping them grouped by twos. "Queen and water," he murmured. "Magician and earth. Prince and air." He stared at the riotously decorated artwork. Finally he shook his head. "Now I will choose for you."

Jodie stared at his hand as he touched the tiles. It looked like Bobby's hand, just as calloused, but darker. He chose the same three piles she had, and moved the extras aside.

"Priestess and recluse." Baird pulled his hand back from the tiles and shut his eyes.

"May I?" Jodie asked. "May I turn them over?"

"Yes."

She turned the next two tiles. The painted wood felt silky smooth under her fingertips, worn with use.

"The fool and the bard." Baird waited for her to turn the final two tiles. "The hierophant and fire."

"What does it mean? Did either of us win?" Jodie knew from his expression that more had transpired than a simple card game.

"If it were merely a game, and not a casting, either of us could have won, depending on the wager." Baird restacked the squares. "I was casting."

"Then it meant something." Jodie heard movements behind her. The others were waking up.

"Perhaps. Considering our current situation, it was remarkably positive. Neither of us drew death, and Kelano's birth prophesy seems reinforced everywhere I turn. The tiles say you each have a remarkable ability to effect Change." He leaned forward a little, lowered his voice even more. "Does he love you?"

The question, the tone of his voice was a lightning shock through her skin. "I believe he does," she answered, almost whispering. "We haven't been together very long. I love him."

Baird sat back and nodded. "Then I can learn to look at you without feeling loss and regret. Just as you know I'm not your man, I know you aren't my Yosieh. This potential for similar lives to exist in other worlds is something our magicians have never imagined. It's more than a little disturbing."

"Kel and Castiel . . . are they okay?" In her effort to turn the topic away from the shatteringly personal, Jodie wondered for a moment if she had only increased her potential for embarrassment. "If that's not an indelicate question?

Baird grinned hugely, then rubbed his forehead and sobered. "I wish she hadn't shared everything with you. It's a huge risk, for you to go into battle knowing she may have given us two new Lux. They had to leave the settlement, and call the hounds to cover any extraordinary noise the process will create. We keep very quiet here, even during passionate moments. I expect her to return by tomorrow morning."

 

It was hard to mark the passage of time in the candlelit chamber. More of Kelano's people came and went, introducing them to the mysteries of primitive waste collection and removal, bathing in bowls, and eating from a communal skillet. Jodie shared her brush, toothbrush and compact with Helene, who hadn't grabbed her purse before the retreat to the panic room. When her fingers brushed against the covered grimoire, Jodie realized she had forgotten it was in her possession.

She reminded Bobby about the grimoire, suggesting Baird might be a useful resource. She could see the suggestion troubled him.

"He might look like me, but he ain't me. These people have an agenda, just like we do. All I'm saying is -- we need to make careful, smart decisions. Let me think about it."

From his tone and expression, Jodie didn't believe he was going to think about it very hard.

"What time is it?" Helene asked, interrupting a deteriorating argument between Dean and Sam. "We got here in the early morning. We napped, and ate once. It feels like Kelano and Castiel have been gone for at least a day."

"About nine or ten hours," Bobby said. "It would be around ten or eleven at home, if time ran the same."

Jodie looked at him, surprised. His voice sounded so sure.

"I can't sit here any longer." Dean paced the chamber like an uneasy tomcat. "I need to get outside."

"Patience." Baird stepped with a swirl of robes into the candlelight. He was followed by two boys who carried a tray of stoneware cups and a bulbous pottery jug. "Kelano Lux charged me with answering questions about our culture, and the basics of our journey from this place to Luxaur." He sat cross-legged on his rug. One of the boys began filling the cups. "Since you've been sedentary most of the day, and I suspect your natural waking/sleeping rhythms are disturbed, this should help." He lifted a cup to his lips, wrinkled his nose and drank.

It smelled like fruit gone very bad. Jodie stared into the dark brown liquid, then looked up to find that Bobby, Helene, Dean and Sam had all swallowed the stuff, and were holding out their cups for more.

"What the hell is it?" she muttered to Bobby.

"Some kind of 'jack," he said. "Probably whatever was left over in the kitchen when they filled the jug."

"What is wrong with all of you?" Jodie sipped the liquid, and nearly choked. It burned down the back of her nasal passages, and along her throat like fire.

"You have to throw it straight down," Helene offered kindly, patting her back. "I've had worse."

"When?" Jodie held her nose and swallowed the remainder of the liquid. When she could talk again she refused a second measure. "I think that must be like swallowing a Molotov cocktail."

Baird waved the boys away. "Leave everything, get yourselves to bed." He waited until they had gone, then refilled his glass. "There was a Drac flyover near the old circle just after sunset. Kelano Lux did not go in that direction, and the flyover did not come fatally close to the circle. But to have them anywhere in our skies . . . they rarely bestir themselves to flight, anymore. Our people who bring provisions to the Six say at least four of them have become wingless worms."

The circle closed tighter as they moved their rugs toward Baird. The men continued to refill glasses as Baird described the fortress-like dwellings of the remaining six Drac, all built around Kelano's family temple.

"They hoard treasure?" Helene had stopped drinking the 'jack, but Jodie could see a different kind of inebriation taking hold of her.

"Yes. They have a good portion of our remaining population mining, and forging, and building things to add to their wealth."

Jodie sat back and let the information wash over her. Dean, Sam and Bobby all asked appropriately bloodthirsty questions about killing, and Helene asked questions about custom and culture. The scope of the task they had agreed to help with was beginning to assume elephantine proportions. They were all blind men, Jodie thought, hearing how the parts of the beast combined into a whole.

"The Grandmothers killed the oldest and largest Drac just after they came through the gate," Baird said, in answer to a question from Bobby. "They were ten in number when the gate closed."

Jodie jerked herself back to full attention.

"They died, but they took two Drac with them. Four of the sisters took two more, perhaps a year after first contact. They used weapons made from the Grandmothers' bones, and also died in the killing." Baird shook his head. "The remaining six Drac learned much from that fight. They gathered bones themselves, and made weapons. Methodically they tracked and killed the rest of the sisters, all save Kelano Lux. As youngest Lux, she was living with us to learn the life of her people."

"Tell me about the Drac Regent," Sam said. "What's his part in this?"

"After the Drac killed the Lux, they began searching for magicians and the Luxguard. For a long time we made it impossible for them to maintain and organize their work force. Samal turned up during the search for magicians. The Drac are as acquisitive about magic as they are about gems and gold. Somehow they recognized his potential."

"What was his potential?" Dean asked. "You said -- no demons here?"

"Energy," Baird said. "He summons raw, brutal force and wields it like a hammer. He might have been a great magician and commander for the Lux, although prior to the Drac's coming most commanders were women from the Luxguard. Drinking Drac blood turns him into a force of nature. Who can stop a volcano from erupting? Who can prevail against the polar blizzard?"

"Baird." A young woman burst into the chamber. She carried a drawn short sword. "Group approaching the outer village. Drac guard. Five horsemen with twenty foot soldiers."

Baird was on his feet. "Roll your rugs and carry them under your arms. Follow Estee."

Jodie grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder, then tucked her rolled rug through the strap. Dean, Sam and Helene went ahead of her. Bobby stayed behind her, close. The tunnels they followed were barely lit, but smooth and free of obstacle. Jodie felt gusts of air from other doorways, heard the small noise of other bodies moving quickly in the dark.

They came again to open air at the end of a tight, low tunnel. Fresh air was a shock after the closeness below. Jodie held her face into the rising wind, and felt sharply driven water drops sluice over her cheeks.

"Keep moving." Baird was last out of the tunnel, fastening a fold of hood over his face. "Cover your faces. If I say _down_ fall flat, and stay very still." He moved up the line, repeating the instruction, then fell back to take rear guard position.

Their first march over the wasteland from the circle had been challenging. This journey was brutal. No thin moonlight made it through the rain clouds overhead. To keep track of each other, and not get lost in the dark, they had to practically walk on each others heels. Although Helene had traded her flats for soft leather sandals, she had bruised one foot on their first walk and seemed to be limping badly. Since she was directly in front of Jodie her gait became more and more obvious, although no word or complaint gave any indication she was in distress.

The landscape remained rocky and brushy, more felt than seen. Twice, for no reason Jodie could determine, they passed Baird's command of _down_ up the line. A closer acquaintance with the ground told Jodie it had been raining for some time; the earth was very cold and wet. Although her flesh tried to conform around the litter of rock, Jodie felt her success at this chameleon act was limited. The second time they went down she landed on a viciously sharp piece that stabbed against one hip bone. She tried to go limp, and all but quit breathing. When they resumed the march her hip throbbed with every other step.

After a time, Jodie quit wondering when it would all be over. Her body seemed numb and light, except for the pain in her hip. She steadied Helene a few times, and kept moving her feet. She tripped often, thought all of them probably did, bruising her legs and raking open the palms of her hands. Her drenched robes clung to her body and water squelched in her shoes, a sensation she had always hated. It seemed like a gift from heaven when Baird passed them with the quiet instruction to halt.

Jodie moved forward, without thinking, and put her arms around Helene. She felt the woman shudder, then heard her laugh.

"A few hours a week in the gym is _not_ enough," Helene whispered. "And these sandals suck."

"You okay?" Bobby was at her back, supporting them both.

"Maintaining." Jodie leaned against him, his solid body against her back providing an immeasurable comfort. Helene's weight shifted as she relaxed and leaned into both of them.

Baird ghosted back out of the darkness. "We're close," he whispered. "It won't be long." He took Helene from them, and swung her into his arms. "Follow me."

"Bobby?" Jodie tried to keep her voice low, and not choke with repressed laughter.

"I don't think so," he growled in her ear. "If you fall, I'll give you a hand up. That's about all I can manage right now."

The end of their march was another tunnel, another underground chamber. A flicker of light from in front of them barely showed the extent of the space around them. Baird put Helene down, and walked to a wall. With his back to them, Jodie couldn't see exactly what he did, but after a moment the wall swung inward.

At least they could stand upright. Baird lit a single candle, then led the way down narrow stone steps. Jodie kept her hand and shoulder against the rock wall, moving her feet as carefully as she could, afraid a slip would take down several people in front of her. When the stairs ended the tunnel continued. And went on, and on.

After all the rain, Jodie was surprised to find she craved a drink of cold water. Once the thought entered her mind, she found it hard to ignore. She tried not to take inventory of the parts of her that were making demands, and kept moving her feet.

Air movement became more noticeable as the tunnel widened and the ceiling shot above their heads, out of sight. Jodie hugged herself in the wet robes. The air was very cool, and made her conscious that every inch of her was damp. They stopped as Baird, and the woman he called Estee, produced and lit more candles, handing them back along the line. Newly revealed by the additional candlelight, the cavern rock sent back colorful fractured sparkles from clusters of crystalline shapes covering the walls.

"It's beautiful," Helene said, looking around. "Calcite crystals."

It was like a walk through a fairyland, through a dream. Fantastic formations and shapes gave way to more crystalline lattices. A couple of times Jodie heard the swift flit of wings. Bats, she thought. She hoped.

Into another tunnel and out again, they moved through more large spaces. Then, finally a small branching tunnel that ended in a roughly oblong cave with formations along the sides that bore a striking resemblance to pillars. The arching ceiling was no more than 25 feet overhead.

A fire blazed in a blackened firepit, drawing subdued golden red reflections from the cavern stone.

"God. That feels wonderful." Helene turned her back to the blaze.

Jodie moved in next to her, shedding her outer robe, rubbing her arms. "What I wouldn't give for a hot bath." She heard Helene's low chuckle of agreement.

"We'll wait here for Kelano Lux." Baird stepped aside and had a rapid conversation with Estee, who left the cavern. "We were expected, but have arrived early," he said, returning to the fire.

Jodie wrung what water she could from her rug and spread it near the firepit. She sat down and removed her shoes, tipping half a cup of water onto the floor. Various groans and complaints came from her companions as they went through similar motions. Wedging himself in next to her, Bobby simply flopped onto his back and shut his eyes.

"I'd like to take my shoes off," he said, "but I need to work up to it."

"You want me to take your shoes off for you?" Jodie managed a tone of deep disapproval.

He cracked one eye open, looking down hopefully. "Of course not."

Jodie went to work on the laces, grinning. Even the best of them were babies about something.

Baird stooped beside Helene and examined her feet. "What is it you do, in your world? Your skin is baby thin."

"Hey." Across the firepit Sam had taken off his hooded robe, and was now removing the sleeveless tunic beneath. "Bene Gesserit sisterhood at 6 o'clock."

Jodie spun on her butt without getting up. Estee had returned with a trio of women. Two younger women with short spears flanked a very old woman with milky eyes and pure white hair. Their robes were dark blue, the first pronounced color Jodie had yet seen in the clothing.

"Luxguard and the hatchery sybil," Baird said. He took a step toward them and made a small bow. "We need supplies."

"Kelano Lux?" The voice sounded possibly older than her eyes and wrinkled face suggested.

"She will follow."

The old woman jerked her head in assent, turned and left the cavern.

 

Dry clothing and rugs, jugs of cold water, a kettle of thick stew, and more herbed crackers appeared as a small swarm of young women bustled around them. Helene's feet were salved and bound. Jodie's abraded hands were cleaned, and minty smelling salve sparingly applied. After eating and drinking all she could fit in her stomach, weariness felt like a creeping drug in her blood. As her hair dried from the heat of the firepit, Jodie found she couldn't quit yawning and rubbing her eyes.

Dean and Sam lounged on the far side of the fire, torsos still bare in spite of the fact they had dry tunics and robes. It was a measure of how exhausted Helene was, Jodie thought, that she had only spent a few minutes enjoying the scenery. Yawning and limping she had moved her rug to a spot between two pillars, and quietly gone to sleep.

Jodie didn't know much about Dean and Sam, just the outline of their life -- an edited outline, she was sure -- and the current challenges they faced. She knew Bobby cared for them, so deeply it scared him. There was always an element of "due to events beyond our control" in the conversations she'd had with him about the Winchester family. She felt she knew Sam the best, although their introduction had been during one of the most terrible nights of her life. In spite of her horror and grief, his oddly competent leadership had impressed the hell out of her.

Looking at them now across the fire, talking and laughing, she got a sense of a bedrock strong bond between them that warmed her.

Jodie picked up her rug and studied the wall formations. "I'm going to bed down," she said. "Over there."

Bobby stretched and groaned, slipping his arms into the dry robe at his side. "Sounds good."

They found an alcove between two pillar formations and spread their rugs. Jodie snuggled into the curve of his body and felt the heat immediately spike between them. Bobby's arms went around her, his mouth buried in her hair.

"Best I've felt all day," he said, against her earlobe.

"Umm. I should think so." Jodie pushed her purse into a pillow shaped lump and closed her eyes. Movement from the firepit registered dimly through her eyelids. She was laying on thin fabric over naked rock, she thought distantly, and it was as soft as a feather bed.

 

When she woke, it was only because her hip ached badly enough to intrude on sleep. Jodie tried to shift her weight off the bruised bone without disturbing Bobby, without success. He murmured something and tightened his arms around her.

Firelight had turned to glowing coals. Jodie could see two dark mounds that had to be Dean and Sam sprawled near the pit. She felt Bobby's mustache tickle the back of neck, and was suddenly very conscious of his body pressed against her back. She took a breath, intending to turn toward him and say his name.

"Shh." His lips touched her ear softly. "Shh." He rocked her slightly at an angle, off her hip and more onto one cheek, keeping her full weight against his body. His hands groped, slipped beneath her robes, pulled the tunic free and slid beneath the bindings over her breasts. He cupped her breasts, thumbs stroking nipples to pebble hard peaks. Pleasure and immediate need shot like liquid fire from her breasts to pool between her legs.

He was hard. She felt him press against her back as firmly as some of the rocks she had fallen against on their walk through the dark. Jodie wanted to whimper at the unfairness of the location, at the impossibility of doing exactly what she wanted with him. They were mostly screened on each side by rock columns, but anyone looking directly into the alcove would have a full view of what they were doing. They couldn't risk taking it much further.

"Shh," he said again. His hands fell to the tie of her trousers, worked the fabric down over her hips. His fingers lingered, slipped between her legs and moved, so slowly, so carefully.

Jodie clenched her teeth and tried not to groan. She felt the slickness of his fingers against her sex, and knew how wet she was. When he took his fingers away, she made a small sound of protest, bucking against his hand. While they both enjoyed banter before and after sex, when they got involved in the act there was usually little speaking. In a situation where verbalizing would be inconvenient, Jodie felt an overwhelming need to talk to him, to tell him how she felt when he touched her.

"Quiet," he breathed against her neck. Shifting her weight forward again he pushed and pulled at their robes.

Cold air blew down her naked thighs and legs. Jodie lay passive, allowing him to move her body so it angled more away from him. His hand felt hot on her skin as he parted her legs, parted the folds of flesh between her legs. Slowly, inch by inch he entered her, pausing to let her wetness ease his way, then finally taking hold of her hips and pulling her snug against his body.

They lay, sealed together, barely moving. A shiver of pleasure shook her, as a shiver of cold might, from head to toe. She heard him make a small, barely audible sound, and felt him give the barest push against her. Hidden under the folds of robe, his fingers went back to her breasts, stroking and teasing the sensitive flesh around her nipples. Jodie felt the muscles deep in her stomach flutter and flex around the solid fullness between her legs, and wildly hoped she would not scream when she came. One of his hands left her breasts and traveled to her stomach, twining into the hair between her legs. Two fingers found the right spot, moved almost gently, deliberately.

"Come for me."

Jodie thought she heard his words, she wasn't sure. Her orgasms were usually deeply satisfying sensations. This orgasm reached up between her legs with clenching, twisting pressure, set her nipples on fire, and nearly stopped her breathing when the release of pressure turned to pleasure. She shook around him, knowing he could feel every rapid muscle contraction against his body. When the spasms ebbed, he was still hard.

"Handkerchief in your purse," he said against her ear.

The purse had slipped from under her head. Jodie opened it, groping inside. Her fingers brushed the grimoire, and moved quickly away. She extracted the handkerchief.

He took it from her hand and kissed her neck. He held her hips again, never withdrawing from her, just barely pushing against her body. She heard the change in his breathing, felt the tension in his hands, then he slipped out of her. She felt his arm go between their bodies, knew what he had wanted the handkerchief for.

It was probably the most romantic thing any man had ever done for her, Jodie thought with euphoric amusement. Considering the lack of bathroom facilities, the aftermath of sex had the potential to make a pair of loose trousers less than fresh in a hurry. She lay quietly as he retied the gathering string of her trousers, then adjusted their robes.

They lay close and warm, listening to the vast quiet.

 _Does he love you?_

Jodie turned in Bobby's arms and looked into his eyes. _I love you._ She mouthed the words silently. He smiled, his eyes crinkling and dancing. He kissed her, lips barely touching.

She felt the words he said against her mouth make themselves at home in her heart.


	3. HIEROPHANT

Author: **Glinda**   
TItle: **Rough Magic**   
Rating: **NC17**

 **HIEROPHANT**

"They are my Gabriel Hounds."

Castiel stared over the wind swept, sparsely treed landscape. Huge, shaggy brindled hounds gamboled and fawned in front of Kelano. He was familiar with his earth's wolfhounds. These creatures were a third larger, with teeth like razors. Densely curled hair protected their bodies from the casual attacks they launched against each other in play.

"Why do you call them that?" It was a shock to hear Gabriel's name in this context. Castiel extended a hand, and a huge bitch sniffed him gingerly, then allowed him to touch her muzzle.

"They were a gift to the Grandmother who visited your earth, from one of your kind. There was a relationship." Kelano slanted an almost amused look at him. "The sisters used to joke that my egg might have been quickened there, although the Grandmother denied it."

"Gabriel. He is -- was -- my brother. He fell in the last war. So many have fallen." It was an effort to remain detached, to merely observe. "Are we stopping here?"

They had walked several miles from the caverns, on an easterly course. Castiel had seen no sign of human habitation, or even human presence during the walk. Twice Kelano had stopped and howled into the wind before the hounds found them, rushing over the grassland like a cresting wave that, breaking, deposited the fiercely elegant animals around them.

She knelt, and the huge bitch transferred her attention to Kelano. There was a long moment of eye contact, a swift tongue across Kelano's cheek, then the hound wheeled away closely followed by the entire pack. The noise of their going rolled across the landscape.

"They will hunt, and play, and make much noise. It should help screen what we do, if any unfriendly watchers happen to be nearby." Kelano pointed at a distant rock formation on the horizon. "We're going there."

It seemed like a lot of trouble to accomplish what was, essentially, a transfer of energy. He understood there was a sexual component to the transfer. He found the idea didn't trouble him.

Castiel matched her steady, rapid pace. "In spite of their limits, my humans are really very good at fighting against superior odds," he said. "I don't plan to die here. I don't think you should plan to die."

"Weren't you listening?" Kelano gave him a sharp look. "It doesn't matter what I think will happen. I can only go into battle if my people will be cared for, whether I live or die."

"I heard. I understand." Castiel eyed her. "But you _do_ think you will die. It's understandable. You've never been in battle before. Your Goddess is served by stewards, not by warriors."

"We can be very fierce in battle," Kelano objected.

"But you do not practice war." Castiel felt bitterness well up in him. "I envy you."

They were silent for a long way. "Does your God speak to you?" Kelano asked, finally.

"No." The word was rough, ragged. Castiel swallowed and spoke carefully. "Oddly enough, God has recently spoken with me, and I didn't know who he was. Twice I was destroyed by greater force than my own, and twice He returned me to the battle. Since then I have sought God, prayed for his voice and guidance. So far, the decisions I have been forced to make, the actions I have taken, have been made without His word to guide me."

"The Goddess spoke to me, when I was young," Kelano said, slowing her pace. "She told me she loved me, that I would do her work and keep watch over her people. Since then, I haven't heard her voice." She touched her head, then her heart. "I feel her here, I know she touches me. But she is mute."

Kelano stopped abruptly, turning to face him. "I've watched humans all my life. They live, love, create the small world of hearth and home. They fight, bicker, and sometimes kill. I will not live for eternity, but the life span of the Lux is many thousands of times that of a human. I have seen them lose the ones they love, seen their small, intense grief. I have lost humans I love a hundred times over, and I am young. I wasn't very old when the Grandmothers and sisters died. I remember every word they ever spoke with me. I remember how they lived. If my world had never seen the Drac, I would have naturally left the villages and moved to Luxaur, and had more limited, controlled contact with humans."

"But you have lived with them all these years." Castiel sighed. "I understand."

"I watched Baird when Yosieh was killed, and wanted to kill every human in the Defile. I know I will lose Baird, in an instant, and I want to scream at the Goddess. I know there is a danger that part of me would gladly die in an attempt to kill all Drac, because then I would not have to grieve again."

"We are what we are. At least you don't have to grieve more than once for ones you love. My humans keep dying and returning. As least you have the gift of creating life. My brothers and I can only take life." Castiel turned and began walking away. "My earth is totally fucked up right now."

There were two pine trees near the rock outcropping. When at last they stood between stone and trees, Castiel looked down the tumble of land that cradled a small, brilliantly blue black lake.

"Our Lake of Memory," Kelano said. "Some of the Grandmothers' bones remain in the depths."

Wind creaked through the tree branches, the sound somehow intensifying the silence that stretched between them. Kelano turned away from the lake, removed her robe and stood naked in the wind and sun.

"I think it is no blessing to live for as long as we do, and not experience the kind of love humans have. I have asked my Goddess to explain why all Lux are female, and humans must die to keep our line alive. You might be the answer to that question, but then again . . ." Kelano shrugged. "As you say. We are what we are. Here you have the chance to create life. To be something more than a warrior."

Her words shocked him. Was this at the back of his easy acceptance of her proposal? With the power of his God, he had brought Dean back from Hell, had returned Bobby to life. But he had never created a life.

Castiel removed his robe. He began to unbuckle the leather belt that held his sword, but stopped as Kelano's posture changed dramatically. "What is it?"

"The hounds are coming back." Kelano frowned. "They wouldn't come unless . . . "

A high pitched shriek from overhead was followed by a tempest of buffeting air that tore branches from the trees. Castiel had the quick impression of broad, batlike wings before Kelano pulled him away from the trees toward the rock.

"Fire!" she shouted.

An inferno erupted behind them. The trees went up like tinder, blue flame licking out over the ground below, eating at stone.

"My robe. There's a Luxblade with my robe." Kelano dove and rolled to the already burning garment, and came up with her weapon. "I"m going to change. It will make another pass in a moment. The eyes are vulnerable. Chest armor near the arm joints may be vulnerable. I'll bring it to you." She stuck the sword into the dirt and planted her hands on rock.

The transformation in the salvage yard had resulted in a modest increase in size between her womanform and Luxform. This transformation was many times larger. The moment the process was complete, she spread her wings and launched herself into the air.

There was nothing he could do but watch, sword in hand. He took the Luxblade from the dirt, put it in the sheath on his belt, and waited.

They were evenly matched in size. The Drac was a rusty brown creature with a snakelike head. It moved with formidable speed, but seemed less maneuverable than Kelano's Luxform. Fire gouted from its jaws as it chased her; it flew through curtains of orange flame as easily as it flew through air.

Kelano glowed with the blue-green colors of sun on ocean and forest. Her aerial maneuvers were agile, graceful and invariably precise. She may not have been a warrior, but she was fearless and had excellent instincts. She avoided the fire, flying higher, then diving and twisting away every time the Drac attempted to catch her.

Castiel wondered how ancient humans could have described her people as foul creatures, no matter how badly they might have done in an encounter with the Grandmothers. Kelano's Luxform was supremely at home in her element, deadly and beautiful.

In a sudden explosion of speed and fire the Drac got glancing contact off one of her wings. Kelano folded her wings and dropped like a stone, and the Drac was unable to close with her. She leveled off, caught an updraft and quickly put altitude between herself and the heavier Drac.

She was trying to get on its back and bring it down, Castiel thought, and it appeared the Drac had the same tactic in mind. With each climb, dive, roll and circle, she was also trying to work the battle closer to the ground.

The first of the hounds arrived, staying well back from the flames. They howled at the sky, voicing their desire to sink fangs into the thing attacking their mistress.

There was less fire coming from the Drac, and it waited until the last moment before flaming. They didn't know much about dragon's offensive capabilities, but here was proof the ability to produce fire was not unlimited. The pair of them were close enough overhead now that Castiel could see the wild, determined expression on Kelano's face. As she stalled her flight directly in front of the Drac, Castiel realized what her final goal had been. He climbed down the hummocky grass bluff overlooking the lake, and ran to the shoreline.

The Drac had not been prepared for a collision. It hit her solidly, scrabbled over Kelano's back, and gouged at her. Its wings flailed madly in an attempt at controlling the fall. Kelano twisted under it, wedging her wing between one Drac leg and wing, twisting with all her strength. The maneuver put her on the Drac's back. It also resulted in an uncontrolled crash into the lake.

Hissing steam erupted from the water, shooting like a geyser into the air. Castiel waded in up to mid-thigh, then stood and tried to see through clouds of vapor. For long minutes it was impossible to tell how close he was to the splashing and thrashing. Their proximity was announced by a glancing blow from a whipping tail that knocked him off his feet. Castiel submerged, surged to the surface and came upright, holding his sword in one hand, the Luxblade in the other. A second wave of water nearly swamped him again as Kelano and the Drac wrestled for position, rolling into the shallows near shore.

Heat bubbled through the water around his legs, and more steam formed. Blue-green and brown, scaled limbs tangled together in the shallows. Kelano had folded her wings tight against her body. She was still underneath the Drac, clinging to its back, arms threaded under the joint between arm and wing, hands fastened in back of the thick neck. The Drac's head whipped from side to side as it tried to roll its belly under and right itself.

Castiel could see a pale wedge of flesh between the breastplate and scales that overlapped the Drac's arms. Water slowed him, but he surged forward, planting his foot on a piece of Drac haunch. Heat seared up through his flesh and bones, but he pushed upward, all his weight behind his sword. The weapon shrieked as it entered between the armored plates, and sank all the way to the hilt. Almost without pause, in a continuation of his motion, he drove the Luxblade upward as the Drac's head came down toward him.

The sound that rent the air was so terrible, so tangible that when the tail caught him again full in the chest with the power of a bullet train, it seemed like an extension of the Drac's bugling scream. When he landed, water closed over his head.

It wasn't deep water, barely enough to cover his body. Castiel stared up at surface motion and writhing foam, and found he had barely enough energy to dig his hands into the lake bottom. He tried to push himself upright, without success. His vessel automatically fought to breathe.

Something jostled and bumped against him, then took forceful hold of the leather belt at his waist. He felt himself sliding over the bottom, then his head broke above water as the bitch hound hauled him to shore. She dropped him, gave him a bark of encouragement, then raced away to join the rest of the pack on the stony beach.

Castiel lay on his side, feet trailing limply into the water, barely breathing. Unable to move arms or legs, he blinked water and sand from his eyes. Kelano stood near the unmoving bulk of the Drac, holding its head under water. She looked across at him, fully unfurling her wings, and screamed into the sky.

Only five Drac remained, Castiel thought. He should gather his strength and care for his vessel. He floated for a moment, merely existing.

Pressure on his vessel's limbs brought him back. Kelano's warmth washed through him, the same heat he had felt during their combined effort to traverse the gate. Castiel blinked and the lake returned to focus. Still in her Luxform, Kelano sat on the sand with her wings folded around them, holding him in her arms. Gabriel hounds lay around them, whining and trying to lick them both.

"Only five Drac remain." His voice felt raw.

She made a trill of sound, and carefully released him to the sand, pointing toward the Drac's steaming carcass. She took two steps back into the water before Castiel felt his intellect return to semi-normal function.

"Perhaps we can find a use for dead Drac blood. Take my robe and tunic and soak them." It was a struggle, but he was finally able to get the tunic free of the belt, and over his head.

Kelano walked up the hillside, found the robe, then continued back into the water. She pulled the blades out of the Drac, soaking the robe and tunic in bright blood that oozed from the eye socket. She brought blades and clothing back to the shore.

Castiel slumped, watching as Kelano took to the air and hovered over the carcass. Griping with the claws on her feet, she towed the Drac's bulk nearly across the lake. When she finally released her grip, the red brown bulk slowly disappeared beneath the water.

Kelano landed on the sand near him, picked him up in her arms and carried him back beyond the charred trees. The hounds followed, whimpering and uneasy. She set him down on an unburned patch of rough grass near the outcropping, stepped back and hunched over. A cloud of dust, dirt and small rock rained around her as she changed back to womanform. When the process was complete, her skin was bruised purple and black under her markings.

"Nice work with the Luxblade," she said, limping to him. "I could barely get it out."

"Drac did most of the work for me." Castiel leaned his head back against the rock. "As Dean says, ouch." He felt a wet tongue on his chest, a heavy weight settle on his legs. Looking down he found the bitch hound watching him. He stroked between her ears. "Thank you."

Kelano collapsed beside him. "Take your family and go hunt," she said, grabbing the hound's muzzle and rubbing her ears. "Thank you for your diligence."

The hound was off his legs with another quick swipe of her tongue. Her pack rushed Kelano for one last sniff, then they disappeared in a controlled riot of graceful motion.

"Baird is going to be very angry with me." Kelano's voice lacked any emotion.

"Perhaps at first." Castiel realized he was nodding forward. He tried to lean against her shoulder, and ended up with his head in her lap.

She pushed his hair back from his face, then sat still with her fingers touching his forehead. Castiel closed his eyes. The sense of her grew, a flame that did not consume, only warmed and comforted. He let himself brush against the flame, let his own energy surge to meet hers. There were burns on his feet and legs, he realized, and broken bones in his chest. There were cuts and angry bruises on her skin, and a bad gash on one shoulder blade. He took part of the shared energy, and let it envelop his vessel, then pushed it on through Kelano. She took his energy and added it to her own, creating an overflow that lapped back again into him. A sense of well-being and serenity flowed between them as their bodies responded to the healing energy.

"That was more difficult than moving seven people through a gate," she said finally.

Castiel sat up. He took a deep, testing breath. Everything was healed and normal. "How do you feel?"

"On what level?"

The forlorn quality of her voice touched a deep chord in him. Castiel rocked from a sitting to kneeling position in front of her. He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her against his chest. "You need something from me, take it."

Kelano buried her face on his shoulder. "I already did."

"I thought --" Castiel moved one hand to the back of her neck, under the heavy fall of hair, "I thought you needed energy from sex to quicken the eggs."

"Apparently battle works just as well." She looked up at him, wetness shining in her green eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry? We killed a Drac and gathered new information on how to kill them. We healed our bodies, and you have quickened your eggs." He wiped a trail of water from her cheek. "Why would you be sorry?"

She put a hand on each side of his face, touching his lips with her thumbs. "Because . . ." Her mouth replaced her thumbs.

Kissing he could do, and well. Castiel lost himself in the movement of lips and tongues, in the taste of her mouth. They folded together onto the ground, still kissing.

"Sex then?" he said against her lips.

"Yes." Kelano hooked her fingers into his trousers.

"Wait. Let me. I'd rather not walk bare-assed over the countryside again." Castiel removed the trousers. "This isn't one of my areas of expertise."

"Nor mine." Kelano drew him down to her. "I have an overwhelming urge to have you touch me, everywhere. Do you think . . .?"

Her skin markings were beautiful. Castiel followed them, with mouth and hands, across her arms and shoulders, down to her breasts. She sighed when he blew against her nipple, then took it into his mouth. When he followed the scrolling designs to her hips and the smoothness of her lower stomach, she made a strangled noise that brought his head up.

"Yes?"

"I've never felt anything like that. It's . . . portentous."

He cocked his head and considered the word. "May I tell Dean you said that?"

"If you wish." She sat up and rolled him under her. "I'd like to touch you now. Everywhere. But first I need to find out what it feels like to have this between my legs." Her fingers closed over his erection. "May I?"

"Please." Castiel felt an overwhelmingly confusing and -- yes, portentous, sensation from her touch. When she took his body into hers, the confusion dissolved into an imperative for motion. They moved against each other, slowly at first, then with a wild abandon that rolled them across the grass. The completion of the act left them both quiet and shaken, tangled together.

"You don't get close to your humans, touch them in love?" Kelano's head was curled under his chin.

"This is the longest I've spent in a vessel, in humanform," Castiel answered. "I have this man's memories of what touching and closeness means to a human. Personal experience has been limited. What about you? You've lived with your humans for a thousand years and more."

"There was more opportunity for physical closeness when I was young. My Luxguard often slept with me for comfort. My family was gone, they took every precaution they could to prevent me from isolating myself." Her fingers found his and twined into a strong grip. "As the years passed and my perceptions began to mature, I realized what sex meant to them, and what it might mean to me. I made the decision to limit physical closeness to them."

"To protect yourself, and them." Castiel touched her fingers to his lips. "I understand."

Light faded as they lay together, bodies touching. The wind rose, lifting ash from the burned ground into the air.

"We should return to the caves. I can already feel the change in my body. The eggs will drop soon, and I should be in the hatchery when that happens."

"Should?" Castiel felt her palm push down, over his hip.

"There's time enough for me to touch you, all over. Do you mind?"

Castiel pressed his face into the thick softness of her hair, listening to wind shrill around the charred tree skeletons.

"Lamentations in the eerie trees," he murmured, remembering a bit of horrible literary exaggeration. "I don't mind at all."


	4. SCRIBE

Author: **Glinda**   
TItle: **Rough Magic**   
Rating: **NC17**

 **SCRIBE**

Helene lay on her side, listening to sounds that could have been more imagination than reality. Her own early deep sleep had passed quickly. She had never needed much sleep, there were too many other things to do.

The Winchesters were sleeping by the fire. Dean had snored for a while, then turned and quieted. Down the wall from where she lay, Helen could see a piece of rug and the sleeve of a robe protruding beyond the rock pillars. Bobby and Jodie, she thought. And they weren't asleep, either.

A woman's breath of arousal, the low vibration of a man's voice had brought her out of a pre-waking drowse. These were cues she was attuned to. What Bobby and Jodie were doing took pretty amazing control, Helene thought with approval. Nearly silent, nearly motionless sex under these circumstances impressed the hell out of her.

The smallest sound of movement on rock told her when they finished. She waited several minutes before stretching and yawning loudly. Helene stood, rubbed her eyes, and limped to the water gourds near the fire. Her foot hurt abominably. She poured a small amount of water over her face, and into her mouth.

"Hey, Hel." Dean rolled over and pushed away the robe he had been using for a blanket. "I'm never going to complain about sleeping in the Impala again."

Helene let her eyes linger over the muscles along his arms, on the sculptured beauty of his face. He raised his eyebrows at her examination. This young man knew exactly how pretty he was, but didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it. It was a potent, tempting combination.

His brother groaned and sat up. Perhaps a better body, she thought. Both of them dangerous, but in different ways. Dean was one hundred and one percent male, and hunter. Sam tripped alerts in her that usually only went off in the presence of preternatural threat. Included in her archived documents on the recent troubles were hunters' reports about Sam Winchester, his use of demon blood, and his collaboration with Samuel Campbell during the previous year. In all her years of archiving hunter history, there were few stories about people more dangerous than these brothers.

Dangerous boys made dangerous toys, Helene reminded herself. She held out the gourd to Dean. He took it from her, brushing her fingers and grinning.

"Is it morning?"

"Damned if I know." Helene half turned as Bobby and Jodie emerged from the alcove. "Sleep well?"

Jodie's expression was simultaneously dazed and satiated. "Well enough."

Bobby rolled his eyes. Even after all this time he could pick up on the nuances of her voice and expressions. He really was adorable. Such a shame they were, always had been, basically incompatible.

"Company," Sam said shortly. He stood and stepped around the firepit. "Castiel?"

The angel staggered toward the fire, then collapsed in a heap at her feet. Helene found herself moved to one side by Dean.

"What's wrong with him?" Dean asked.

"Exhaustion." Baird stepped into the cavern with Kelano at his side.

Castiel roused himself enough to mutter, "Just let me sleep for a bit," then curled on his side in modified fetal position.

Did angels sleep? And what had these two done to drain his angel batteries to this extent? Kelano didn't look exhausted, Helene thought judiciously. Kelano's beautiful face with the odd green eyes and wine-colored hair gave her the look of a Michael Parkes print. _Creation,_ Helene thought, or perhaps _Deva_.

Kelano sank cross-legged near Castiel's unconscious body without speaking.

Two young men scurried in with more firewood and a steaming kettle. Something grain-based, by the odor. Hot cereal or porridge? Helene itched to get out among greater numbers of these people and see more of their society.

They all gathered around the firepit, the boys sitting like guard puppies on either side of Castiel.

"My eggs are with the hatchery sybil, and safe even from the Drac for now," Kelano said. "The Lux will live on. Now we can plan our war."

Baird's head moved slightly away. Helene searched his face. He thought Kelano was going to her death. He thought they were all going to die, she realized, and there was no fear in him, for himself. But for Kelano . . . Helene switched her scrutiny to Bobby. Calm, waiting -- yet prepared. And as Helene analyzed the difference between the two men, it gave her a tingle of pride and pleasure to see Bobby did not expect to die, and would put up a hell of a fuss if anyone else tried to die on his watch.

Helene sighed. She knew her own weakness for heroes. A brief fantasy of her big bed at home, and herself sandwiched between two nearly identical Bobby Singers was quickly considered, then stored for later, lengthy examination. She took a cup and sampled some of the cereal. It was thin and sweet, not too much like wallpaper paste.

"How many campaigns have the two of you conducted?" she asked, when nothing followed Kelano's bald statement of intention. "Major, coordinated actions against the Drac, or the Regent?"

It was Baird who understood her question. "Perceptive. Our energies have been focused on remaining undetected, and gathering information from those who are enslaved. We kill Drac guards when the opportunity presents itself."

"Guerilla warfare, if any. That's probably better training for this endeavor than full scale warfare," Helene said. "I need a historical perspective for this discussion. It was roughly 700 years, our earth time, that dragons, Drac, disappeared from mainstream notice. How long has it been here?"

"Thirteen hundred and eighty years," Baird answered.

"So there is a time differential," Helene said.

Jodie looked up sharply. "Kel is thirteen hundred and eighty years old?"

"A little older," Kelano said. "Around fourteen hundred years. My body had just produced an egg before they entered through the gate."

Dean came out of his apparent coma near the fire abruptly. "You were a fourteen hundred year old virgin?"

"Not exactly," Kelano frowned. "If you define . . "

"Stop right there." Helene interrupted, frowning at Dean. "Where, physically did the gate open?" Her mind raced, gathering the clues, the information needed to give form to the big picture.

"The eastern continent. The Drac stayed there for many years after the death of the Grandmothers and the sisters," Baird said. "They kept control of a small number of people they used to work old mines. Eventually, as the absence of Lux took its toll, they abandoned the eastern lands and found their way here."

Helene looked at Kelano. "Baird, you said if she died without heirs, it would mean the end of people here." She glanced over at Bobby, and saw him give a half-nod, his eyes intent on Baird. "Metaphysical symbiotic relationship of some kind?"

"What does your intuition say?" Bobby smiled ruefully. "This is more your area of expertise -- it's certainly not mine."

"Dracs can sense her? No." Helene shook her head. "The only stable, healthy population remained here, near Kelano. They were drawn to that." She could see Baird's mind work as he looked at his own history, his people's situation from a slightly different perspective.

"Yes. At first they could only hold a limited number of our people in servitude. They controlled the skies, and threatened to burn our crops and land to slag if we didn't provide tribute of food and goods, but organizing and keeping slaves was not one of their skills."

"The Regent changed the dynamic," Helene guessed.

"That is true." Baird pulled the Change stacks from his bag and began laying and turning the tiles. "Samal recruited men to serve as Drac guards, in mockery of the Luxguard and tradition. His press gangs began to sweep the land about Luxaur, impressing greater numbers of citizens to the work of building and maintaining the Drac holds, and his own abode at Luxaur."

"Has he fought directly against your people? You said he could command energy."

Baird's fingers hovered over the tiles, turning one here, one there. "There were villages that resisted the Drac guard. Samal made examples of them. Pieces of the villages and those who lived there rained from the sky for days afterward. You walked over some of that land when you arrived."

Slowly, through question and answer, Helene constructed the framework she needed to build their war upon. She was pleased to see Dean and Sam become engaged in the process, although they were direct and unsubtle. Bobby had always shown strength in both physical and mental tactical planning. And while Jodie didn't contribute much, the questions she did ask showed a tactical mentality.

They called the city around Luxaur temple _the Defile_. From Baird's description, it was the largest permanent settlement left in their world. Six massive Drac fortresses lay at the center of the city, built around the temple.

"The Dracs you describe as wingless worms. Tell me how and when they changed," Helene probed. "What are their habits, how do your people interact with them? How does the Drac guard function around the Defile? What are the Regent's habits and lifestyle?"

Baird answered most of the questions. Kelano spoke little, but listened intently.

After what felt like hours of talking, Helene held up her hand. "I need to stretch and think."

"What has changed?" Jodie stared into the fire, thinking aloud. "Recently, I mean. Why is the Goddess sending Baird messages now? Kelano has been the only Lux for over a thousand years. Is there a -- time-sensitive component we don't know about?"

Baird looked up from his contemplation of the Change tiles. The expression on his face gave Helene a moment of sympathetic, stomach clenching regret. She had no doubt he saw his dead wife when he looked at Jodie. From the answering bleakness in Jodie's eyes, Helene knew she saw it as well. What would Sam feel, when he faced Samal for the first time? What would Samal feel? Of all the pieces she had arranged in her mind, the existence of the doubles was most intriguing, and elusive bit to fit into the overall picture.

"Samal has been making sacrifices in the temple," Baird said. "I believe he is trying to open a gate."

 

At Helene's request, Baird led them on a short walk through the caverns. Her feet still hurt, but she was determined to toughen herself to the point where she wouldn't be a liability if they had to make another rapid relocation. Also, the Winchesters were arguing again, clearly showing the strain of inactivity. And as much as they obiously enjoyed the verbal sparring, they were interfering with her concentration.

Kelano excused herself and disappeared into the depths. They saw none of Kelano's other people, but Helene thought she could feel their presence nearby. The magnificence and variety of the caves left them all a bit awed.

She fell in beside Bobby as they walked. "Black Hills caves." she said. "These probably stretch for days around us."

"If locations on both worlds have similarities, yeah," Bobby agreed. "I'm not sure how to figure the odds of this situation, but I'm pretty sure the smart money in Vegas wouldn't be on us."

"Oh ye of little faith." Helene took his arm and patted his hand. "I need to get home and write a paper about this. _The opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself._ "

"I didn't say long odds never paid off. You have an idea?"

"I may have the beginning of an idea. I need more information." She heard him snort a laugh. "What?"

"Nothing. You're very good at what you do, Hel. And you know it." Bobby took his hand back. "Dean's not wearing a t-shirt that says _Purina Cougar Chow,_ by the way."

"Monumental buzz kill," Helene said. "I get the clear impression Dean can take care of himself. What was Sheriff Mills wearing on her legs this morning? And what's the age differential there?"

"I didn't say I was worried about _Dean_." Bobby's tone was dry.

It was a rare encounter, Helene thought as they returned to the cave, where she didn't manage to get the last word. The more she saw of this older Bobby, the more she regretted the years that had passed without communication between them. He'd always managed to stay one move, one jump ahead of her. It was a level of competition that not many friends, or enemies, provided.

Castiel was awake and sitting upright. Huddled in his robes, with his hair touseled and the pronounced shadow on his jaw and chin, he could have been mistaken for a homeless person on the street of any major city.

"Cas -- you okay?" Dean was the first to reach the firepit.

"I have been worse, and I have been better," Castiel said. "Are her eggs safe?"

Baird sat down next to him. "Safe. And viable. The hatchery sybil believes both will mature."

"Good." Castiel stood up stiffly. "Is there water?"

"Sit down." Sam grabbed a water jug and mug.

"Thank you. Having been blown to shit twice in recent memory, I find myself immoderately glad to have avoided a third such dispersement." Castiel accepted the water, drank it quickly and held out the glass for more.

"Really?" Dean lowered his voice. "Sex with her was -- nearly explosive?"

"Sex?" Castiel frowned. "Oh. To be accurate, yes, but I'm not referring to the . . ."

"Castiel." Kelano stood behind them.

Helene jumped a little. All her attention had been on Castiel's words, and Kelano had entered as silently as a stalking cat.

Castiel shut his mouth and looked a question at her.

"I haven't told them yet."

"Why?" His eyes left hers and moved to Baird.

"Kelano Lux. What have you done?" Baird went from sitting to standing in a second.

"I wanted Castiel to be awake when we had this discussion. Sit down." She followed her own advice. "I called the hounds and took Castiel up into the hills. They hunted nearby, providing a screen of noise and confusion. All would have been well, but there was a Drac flyover, and the hounds instinctively left the hunt and came to offer me protection. The Drac followed them. Castiel killed it."

Baird's mouth hung open. When words finally came to him, they came fast, hard, and furious. "What exactly to you mean when you say _he_ killed it. What were you doing while _he_ killed it?"

"It retained Dracform, so Kelano changed to Luxform. She knocked it from the sky into the lake, then held it on its back. I drove my sword under the armpit ridge, then pushed her Luxblade deep into an eye." Castiel shrugged. "It died. Luxblades are very fine weapons."

The angel might have many strengths, Helene thought, but storytelling was not among them. Baird was speechless again. Dean gave Castiel a thumb's up. Reading Bobby, Jodie, and Sam's faces, it was clear they understood from the brevity of description that the encounter had not been so straightforward.

"No significant injuries?" Helene asked. "I don't see any gaping wounds."

"Nothing significant," Castiel answered. "Some of the energy we used, afterward, was for healing."

"We have no time left now," Baird whispered. "Drac guard must already be on the move, to try and find out why the Drac didn't return. The flyover near the shattered lands must have been the other winged Drac, searching."

"I sank the carcass deep in the Lake of Memory, in the resting hole. I don't think they can find it." Kelano sounded slightly defensive. "We soaked Castiel's robes in dead Drac blood and left them with the hatchery commander."

"You're making Dragon Swords?" Helene clapped her hands together. The longer Castiel and Kelano talked about their adventure, the better their chance of success seemed to her. One of the six Dracs had already been taken out of the equation. "Tell me about Luxblades."

Baird was clearly impatient with further questions. "I'm going to speak with the hatchery commander, and the sybil. She should move deeper into the caves. Answer the scribe's endless questions while I'm gone, and be prepared for mine when I return." He spun on one foot, sending his robes billowing dramatically around his legs.

It was a grand exit. Helene watched until he disappeared from their cave, then turned to Kelano. "Luxblades?"

"Weapons made from Lux bones." Kelano reached into the folds of her robe and pulled out what looked like a cross between a dagger and short sword. The blade was an odd shade of silvered ivory. "Stronger than worked metal, and holds its edge against almost anything without chipping." She ran her fingers through the hair at the back of her neck and pulled out a small sheath barely five inches long.

Helene took both weapons from her, amazed to feel the balance and light weight of the short sword. The grip fit perfectly into her hand, a bump of material acting as a guard. Looking closely, she could see grip and guard had been stained darker than the blade, but the weapon was all of one piece. It was difficult to believe a sword made of bone could be strong enough to pierce Drac skin. "The Lux must be very hard to kill," she said, thoughtfully.

"We bend before we break," Kelano said. "But enough bending will do the job."

"Only five left, and you think four of them have been locked in Dracform -- as wingless worms? Describe them for me," Helene said. She eased the small knife out of its sheath and tested it against one finger. It brought a bright line of blood with barely any pressure, and no pain.

"They are bloated, as large as some ocean mammals," Kelano said. "They grow so they can lay over their treasure. It is their chief joy. Word has come back from slaves who bring goods to the holds that these four have shrunken wings, far too small to ever carry them in flight. They never change to manform, never leave the holds."

"When you shifted -- changed -- in the yard, I think you gained mass by using material from the ground. Rock, soil . . . did I see that right?" Bobby asked.

Kelano nodded her head. "And when I make a quick transition back from Luxform, I can shed mass in a similar way. It takes a lot of energy, and there is a limit to how much mass I can manipulate in this fashion. We suspect the Drac do something similar when they shift. The imbalance between a bipedal manform and what the four have turned into . . ." she shrugged. "Even if they tried to reduce their mass to achieve flight again, the amount of energy needed would be beyond my capability. I have to believe they cannot easily return to their previous forms."

"What if they had help. Baird said Samal can control large amounts of energy. Could he jump start such a regression?" Jodie asked.

"He is a hammer. And I don't believe he would do it if he could." Kelano looked across the firepit at Sam. "Samal is, by any measurement, insane. Baird has not said it, but we think his end game is domination over the Drac, the people, and beyond. He has no interest in sharing with the Drac, or even protecting them. They have been a convenient means for him to become powerful."

"You must have thought about how to kill them," Helene said. She returned the Luxblades to Kelano.

"They are still armored," Kelano said slowly, "but corpulent. Still fast, and quick to react, but their size makes them less maneuverable, especially between stone walls. Castiel's sword would not be long enough to pierce the heart of such a worm, although a Luxsword, through the eye . . ." she shrugged. "While they have never thrown fire inside their holds, people and things have been burned upon skin contact. I believe they would hesitate to damage their treasures."

"Hesitation could be enough for us," Helene said. "Tell me about Luxaur. Tell me everything you know about Samal."

Kelano was no more expansive over this request than she had been about the Drac killing incident. Short, brutal words outlined human sacrifice and the use of people as Drac cuisine. Samal emerged as a sadistic pervert that would have made Hannibal Lecter seem grounded. Dean's jokes deserted him. Sam's pale skin took on a greenish tinge.

"Dude _needs_ killing," Dean observed, when Kelano paused.

"He does." Helene caught and held Bobby's eyes. "It might be that dying will be the one useful thing he ever does." She saw his eyes widen, and knew while rest of them took her words as a generality, he had seen something of her thought process. "I have to pee, and walk, and think some more." She waved Kelano's offer of an escort away. "The candles mark the way to the pots. I can find my way there and back."

It was a relief to be by herself. Helene walked slowly from one flickering candle to the next, feeling the darkness and the rock around her with increasing awareness. It was so quiet, so huge, so beautiful, so hidden. She found the pottery chamber pots and emptied her bladder, pouring cold water from the ever present gourds to cleanse her hands. It impressed her to note these people made an effort to preserve the environment, to the best of their ability. Stepping back onto the main pathway, she shut her eyes and listened.

"What do you hear?"

Baird's voice. She felt a quick, startled shock that she was no longer alone, and she hadn't heard him approach. "Nothing."

"It's a good place to listen to the Goddess, down here." He stepped up beside her, holding a candle. "You would be a commander of Luxguard here. Your mind is suited to tactical analysis and planning. You would need to be stronger, physically."

"In my world women get the farthest by using their minds," Helene said tartly, "not their muscles." She reconsidered. "At least, not the muscles in their arms."

Baird grinned. The twinkle in his eye was very much like Bobby's.

"He has a woman, but you look at him somewhat possessively."

"When we were both very young, we had -- adventures. Years have come between us, but he's still a part of what made me into the woman I am now." Helene smiled. "I treasure the memories."

"I think we would argue, if you were here for any length of time." Baird stepped closer and touched her cheek. "But you are very beautiful. If we could keep talking to a minimum, I think we could spend time together."

"Is that a delicate way to say you'd like to have sex?" Helene was amazed at his casual approach. It added a dimension to his character, to these people, that she hadn't suspected. The stoic, grieving loner vibe had been very strong.

"There's a hint of sexual invitation in everything you say and do. While I know nothing about your land and culture, you seem healthy and uninhibited. I wouldn't approach Jodie for several reasons," his eyes flicked down to the ground, then returned to her face. "But I believe you would answer yes -- or no -- to me based on your own desires. I have found peace over Yosieh's death, but I don't look for a new partner. A proposal like this to one of my own people would be -- more complicated. "

"Maybe we should discuss this off the path."

"Yes. But wait here. I'll speak with Kelano Lux. If you're gone too long without reason, someone will come looking for you." He took a step, hiding the candlelight with his body, and disappeared.

Helene sat down on a nearby rock. There had been no lover in her life for several months, and just the suggestion of getting a look under Baird's robes increased the tempo of her heart, brought warmth low between her legs. The darkness around her had somehow changed from the solitude of meditation to prelude and promise of intimacy.

It wasn't long before she saw the moving light flicker again. "I told Kelano Lux there were things I wished to discuss with you, in private, as her magician."

Helene followed, picking her way carefully as he led them through a claustrophobic series of openings in the rock. Ducking nearly double for several yards, she was finally able to stand upright. Baird led them into a tiny cave, perhaps eight feet in circumference and no more than seven feet in height. The cavern floor was smooth rock.

Baird set his candle on a rock ledge, among the remains of other candles. "I come here to talk to the Goddess, to pray," he said, "when I can. We've avoided these caves, and the old hatchery, as much as we could to minimize chance of exposure."

"What's this really about?" She studied the lines of his body, subtly revealed by the drape of robe, as he leaned back against the rock and crossed his arms. "I know about men, and you aren't the type to take a booty call in the middle of planning for a war. One minute you're scolding Kelano for wasting time, the next you're propositioning me in a secluded cave."

"Boo-tee call?" He said the words with interest. "A phrase from your language? I like the way it sounds. To be accurate, I propositioned you on the hatchery path. Don't your magicians use sex for ritual purposes, to calm and center the mind and body, to communicate with the Goddess?"

"To-ma-to, to-mah-to." Helene grinned. "Never mind. We don't have magicians." She untied her outer robe and let it fall. WIthout giving him a chance to respond, she slipped off her sandals, stepped out of her trousers and stripped her tunic over her head. It took her a moment to find the end of the breast wrapping; more than a moment passed when she saw the expression on his face. "Here." She stepped forward and put the tail end of the wrapping in his hand. "Make a wish, and pull."

Baird pulled slowly as Helene pirouetted around, unwrapping herself. When the cloth fell completely away, she faced him and loosened her hair from the knot against her neck. Hair fell over her breasts, curling under one nipple.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" She saw his eyes darken as his pupils expanded, saw his lips move involuntarily. He took a step away from the wall toward her, and she expected him to put his arms around her. Instead he walked slowly around her, simply looking at her body. When he touched her skin it was a brief glide of fingers over the back of one shoulder, then along her collarbones up to her jaw.

"This skin is pampered, but it is also marked by struggle," he murmured. His fingers trailed over the long, thin scar on her back, across the taut rounds of her cheeks. "Your hair is like sunlight." He touched the hair between her legs.

Helene shivered. "That feels lovely, but in the interest of efficient use of time may I suggest you take off your robe and spread us both on the floor?"

His robe and tunic were on the floor nearly before she finished speaking. Skin bronzed darker than Bobby's bore scars along work-muscled arms and over his ribs. When he stepped out of his trousers, it was immediately obvious that circumcision wasn't part of his culture's rituals. He knelt on the robe and held out a hand. It was a gesture that froze Helene where she stood.

 _The Lux. All female. Luxguard, all female. Samal's recruiting of men to act as Drac guard, with the implication it was a perversion of tradition._

Helene's mind raced. Kelano had called Baird her commander, but Baird had said commanders were normally women. This was a different culture, and there were subtle differences in gender roles and expectations.

"Baird. Kelano said she thought you might be the last magician among her people. Were magicians preponderantly men, or women?"

"Women. Although the gift for magic is passed through the male line in my family, as it is in Samal's. This is makes us unusual," Baird said. "Why?"

"Endless questions," she said, kneeling beside him. "A simplistic generalization about my culture might be that the man most often hunts the woman for mating. How is it in your culture?"

"In general, I would say more often the woman is the hunter. Girls become women early." Baird made a grimace. "A Drac will eat any human, but sexually mature virgin females seem to draw them like lodestones. Women choose their own partners, sometimes fight for them."

"Why are you seducing me?"

"I'm not sure I should answer that honestly." He laughed, smoothing his fingers over her cheek and jaw. "I'm not sure I can answer that honestly. What I said on the path was true."

"You want to have uncomplicated sex? There's no such thing." Helene laughed back. He was adorable. "What else?"

"You're going to send Kelano, and my people into battle. I've watched you, listened to you. Everything about you rings true. But I am her commander, and I have to be sure." Baird's face was serious now. "I can learn a lot about you, quickly, this way."

She couldn't resist his mouth. Helene leaned in and kissed him, tasting the faint tang of herbs on his mustache, smelling wood smoke and salt from male sweat on his skin. His hands closed over her ribs, slid to her breasts. A flush of sensitivity spread out around his hands, and it seemed as if a second heart began to beat between her legs. Helene felt, rather than heard, a deep vibration in his throat as she pulled her mouth away from his. Ability to form coherent thoughts, let alone coherent sentences, was decreasing by the second.

She wound Baird's braid around her fingers, pulled his head back so she could rub her face against his beard. "Here's the Reader's Digest Condensed version of everything you need to know about my sexual preferences -- some of which may be cultural, some of which may be unique to me." She followed the trail of hair along his belly, felt his cock jump against her fingers. "I am not particular about position. I am not particular about foreplay. If I don't like what you're doing, I'll tell you. If I want you to do more of something, or do it harder, I'll let you know. Now, it's your turn."

"My turn?" He watched her through half-closed eyes. "Oh. I understand. I am not particular about position, although I can think of four ways I want you at this moment. I enjoy spending time exploring a woman's body as much as I enjoy reaching climax with her. I can't imagine _not_ enjoying anything you might want to do with me."

"Good attitude." She let go of his braid and pushed him backwards, lay her weight on his body, and wedged a leg between his thighs. "What's at the top of your list of four ways you want me?"

 

A trio of blue robed Luxguard were waiting on the hatchery path. They greeted Baird respectfully, and fell in behind them. It occurred to Helene that Baird had prearranged this escort back, perhaps to camouflage what they had been doing. The thought brought a deep, internal amusement.

As they walked she found herself experiencing a growing detachment and clarity, a sensation that brought back memories of experimentation with various meditational herbs. She tried not to limp, feeling very conscious of the women behind her. Her foot still burned where the sandal straps rubbed, and there was a definite sensitivity between her legs. Sex with Baird had been dynamite with a short fuse. Now her body was exhausted, and her mind was detaching itself from the physical, furiously assembling, disassembling, rearranging the information she had gathered about Kelano's world.

Some of the clues were so tiny, they hung out on the edges of the puzzle, refusing to fit into the whole. Some of the clues looked like whopping, preassembled parts of a jigsaw.

Everyone glanced around as they entered. Kelano and Jodie sat together talking. Bobby, Dean, Sam and Castiel were on the far side of the firepit, arguing. Across the space, Helene met Bobby's eyes and felt blood flush her cheeks. He looked startled, then raised his eyebrows.

Baird took his place at Kelano's side. "These are the remaining three Lux commanders. Estee, your guide here; Lara and Naomi. Lara has just arrived from the Defile."

All three women had knelt in back of Kelano. At Baird's words, Lara stepped forward. "There is some movement, mostly from the house guard of the remaining winged Drac. Deliveries continue to the wingless worms as usual. More of our people have been taken, restrained, into the temple. Our observers believe Samal continues the killing inside."

Kelano gestured, and the woman returned to her previous position. "They are no longer acting in unison."

"The Goddess provides."

Baird touched her knee, and Helene felt an almost electrical shock race through her body. "How long will it take to travel to the Defile?" she asked.

"Slightly less than a day's walk, if we conceal ourselves with a tribute caravan. If we went quickly, by stealth, perhaps five hours." Baird glanced over his shoulder. "Estee, what caravans are enroute?"

"Four incoming from the west. Black River caravan is closest."

Just a few more pieces of the puzzle, and she would have it. Helene found herself laughing out loud, a reaction that brought troubled looks from her fellow travelers. She winked at Bobby and saw him roll his eyes. "It's a gynecocracy, with a Goddess who is immanent in the Lux."

He stopped, mid eye-roll. "Oh."

"What does that mean?" Jodie was quick to pick up on the understated importance of her words.

"Assumptions can make you look like a damn fool, if they don't kill you first." Bobby reassured Jodie with a touch on her arm. "Hel will explain."

"First, if Kelano will confirm this for me -- you say Samal may be trying to open a gate with sacrifice. There's a pentagram in the temple?"

"Yes."

"Kelano, do you think you and Castiel could kill the other winged Drac, together?" Out of the corner of her eye, Helene saw Baird turn his head sharply toward her.

"Yes." Castiel answered immediately. "If there were no other distractions."

"I agree," Kelano said. "If Samal was involved, my answer would be different."

"And the wingless worms? How many Luxblades do you have that could be used against them?"

"Blades of sufficient length to kill, not just damage? Three," Kelano answered. "We have many short swords, like the one Castiel used on the Drac we killed."

"And we have the dragon sword. It doesn't need to be long enough to reach a vital organ, the blade itself is like poison to a Drac," Helene said.

"Coat the Luxblades with the dead dragon's blood you brought back," Dean said. "A little extra insurance."

Helene felt a shock of triumph. The plan floated in her mind now, with nearly video game clarity. "Yes. We will need six nearly simultaneous attacks. Kelano and Castiel will take the Drac who can still shift. Four groups will go after the wingless Dracs, with the dragon sword and Luxblades."

"And the sixth attack will be against Samal?" Baird's voice sounded very troubled. "Only Kelano Lux and Castiel might even hope to go against him."

"In a direct fight," Helene agreed. " _It is precisely when a force has fallen into harm's way that it is capable of striking a blow for victory._ " She saw Bobby stiffen, and Jodie's eyes lose focus, then turn to Dean and Sam. Given enough time, and the right circumstances, Helene thought she could be good friends with Sheriff Jodie Mills. She really hoped there would be a chance to find out.

Bobby got to his feet, rubbing his knees. "Dean. Sam. The evil clone with the power to nuke whole villages -- she wants you to distract him while we kill the Drac. Got any last words?"


	5. FOOL

Author: **Glinda**   
TItle: **Rough Magic**   
Rating: **NC17**

 **FOOL**

"Last words are like the best come back lines," Dean said. "You always think of them later. I've got at least three classics ready in case I'm ever mauled by Hellhounds again. I _would_ like to lodge a complaint with the Ethan Rayne Costume Emporium, or maybe find out about getting royalties, if things are going to keep wearing us to parties."

"Quit bitching. At least you don't have to look at yourself while we're here." Sam fisted him in the ribs, a little too hard.

"Yeah. And why is that?" Dean rubbed his side and waggled a finger. "Because evil you _killed_ me."

Helene Visyak watched them spar with an intense, intimidating concentration. She wasn't sidetracked by the banter, and she knew about Sam's past. Dean could see it in her eyes when she looked at him. Bobby hadn't wanted to say much about her, but Dean had pressed a little. He knew why the Buffy reference had come to mind. Helene Visyak was like a freaking one woman historian and watcher's council for the hunter community. A kind of hot woman, even if she was closer to Bobby's age than his. Not that age alone would have been an issue. A hot woman was a hot woman.

There had been plenty of weird dynamics to watch as Helene grilled their hosts. Cas and Kel . . . Cas hadn't said more than a few words since coming back from the dragon slayride and sexcapades. Dean mostly got the feeling Cas thought there was somewhere else he should be. Kel was nearly as quiet. She reminded him of a recent Nat Geo special on raptors Sam had made him watch at that last motel where pay-per-view wasn't an option. Kel was poised to go into a dive, nail, and strip the flesh off something. Enthusiastically.

Bobby and the sheriff seemed as comfortable as an old married couple, and Piggy-tail Bobby had stopped following the sheriff around with his eyes and was now trying not to watch Helene.

Dean leaned over toward Bobby and whispered out of the corner of his mouth. "She hit that?"

Bobby's fist was no less solid than Sam's had been. "Mind your tongue, boy."

"Oww." Lack of sense of humor in stressful situations seemed to be contagious. Dean rubbed both sides of his ribcage and smiled at the faces across the firepit. "What's the plan?"

"We work out a timeline," Helene answered slowly. "Much of what you and Sam will have to do will be improvisation. Our sequence needs to be pretty close to perfect. Samal must be distracted and unresponsive if any of the Dracs manage to call for his aid. The winged Drac is mobile, and could go to the assistance of the worms, so it must be engaged first. Simultaneous raids upon the four wingless worms should begin after Kelano and Castiel have begun their attack. After killing their Drac, each group will go to Luxaur, where we can meet and give Dean and Sam help with Samal, if they need it."

"If they need it?" Baird growled. "Those of us who live to reach the temple will probably be in no condition to help anyone."

It was weird, how Bobby and Baird were alike, and how they were different. If Evil Samal was like Sam had been, arrogant and high on the demon blood, predatory and cold without the humanizing influence of a soul, Dean thought they were in for a rough hunt.

"No," Helene said patiently, "so we can kill Samal, and use his death as the energy we'll need to open a gate and go home."

Dean heard Jodie's intake of breath, saw the small motion of rejection at the idea.

"Kel says the dude's going to die anyway," Dean said judiciously. Having recently agonized over ways to deal with his own brother, he found this was an effortless decision.

"Will he?" Jodie looked to Kelano. "If he can't drink Drac blood any longer, will he still be a threat to your people?"

"No. Because he will be dead." Kelano's voice was inflexible. "I hope to do it myself."

"It's a good idea." Castiel finally seemed to snap out of it. "This is Kelano's home, she won't be coming back with us, and I cannot provide the energy for the return trip by myself. It must come from somewhere, or we're stuck here."

"I just want to be clear about what we're doing." Jodie looked at Bobby as she spoke. "When Kelano talks about killing this man, she's acting as her people's highest law enforcement officer. For crimes against her people, the sentence is death. When we talk about bringing about his death because we have a need, and we think he deserves to die, I feel we're crossing a line."

"Jodie. This ain't vigilante justice, and it ain't . . ."

"It's my job, Bobby." Jodie shook her head. "That line, I've seen others cross it. I know there's no going back. Some choices don't make you evil, don't make you bad, don't mean you weren't doing what was necessary to survive. But they change who you are, and what lines you'll cross in the future. Self-defense with extreme prejudice is one thing. Proactive slaughter is another. If I have to go there, I want to make sure there's no self-delusion about what I'm doing."

"None of you bear responsibility for Samal," Kelano said quietly. "I do understand what you've said, Jodie. I will be there, at the end."

That brought the conversation to an end. Dean watched Bobby's face as Jodie moved off by herself and stared into space. Dean had seen that combination of pride, misery, and weary experience in Bobby's eyes many time before. He'd only seen this other expression once, and Bobby had been looking at a dead woman.

Not just sex between them, then. Bobby loved Jodie, trusted her enough to bring her into their crazy world. Dean took an involuntary breath, and looked away. Jodie had skills, understood risk. It wasn't like she was a waitress, or nurse . . . he pushed the thought out his mind and turned to Sam.

"So. What would you find distracting, if you were your own evil twin?"

 

"Basically, we just keep Samal talking until the others show up," Sam said for the third or fourth time. "He's going to be interested in who we are, how we got here. Kel says he's hot for gate technology, so we provide teasers and promises."

"You slut." It wasn't going to be that easy. It never was. "He likes killing things, there's an extra of us, and he's already shown how much he likes his brother."

"Hel said it -- we're going to have to improvise. We're not bad at that." Sam was using his very earnest face and voice.

"Let him take point on this, Dean." A flash of leg showed as Helene rubbed ointment on her toes. "I think he's going to be Samal's focus."

"Sam's been to the dark side." Bobby looked up from where he and Castiel were drawing in the dust of the cave floor, reconstructing the sigils needed for the gate. "Let's hope the experience is worth something now."

"Whatever." Dean threw his hands up. "So we're going in there without weapons, wearing bathrobes. I'm going to die."

"What if you could take a weapon?" Helene replaced her sandals and carefully tightened the straps. "What would you be willing to do to take a knife with you?"

Dean's butt clenched without specific instruction from his conscious mind. "What are you suggesting?"

"I'm not suggesting you put it in the first place he'll probably look," Helene said tartly.

"Not helping me relax here." Whatever she was contemplating, it was going to be at least as pleasant as a full cavity search, he was sure of it.

"Kelano's knife is very sharp, very slim. I thought, somewhere on your torso, maybe upper thigh." Helene studied him. "Take off your robe and tunic."

"What the hell, Hel. You can't shove a knife into him, especially one of those Luxblades. Thing would work itself in deep."

"Am I an idiot, Bobby Singer? I can cut a small hole in him, then put the knife in the sheath, and the sheath into the hole. Five, six inches straight down between muscle isn't so bad. We slap a bandage over it, scratch him up a little on his arms and chest so it doesn't look suspicious -- voila! He'll have a knife when he needs one." Helene looked around at them. "What?"

Dean found his understanding of the reasons Bobby had run from Helene Visyak, and never looked back, growing by the minute. "Not just no . . . "

"Where's the knife?" Jodie asked.

Kelano removed the blade from her hair. "To bear a weapon inside your body. This is an interesting idea."

Slender and deadly, the small knife fit on the palm of Jody's hand. "I think I have some athletic tape in my bag. What if we taped this to the bottom of Dean's foot, just before he goes in. Scratch him up a little so there's reason to put a bit of rag around his foot, not enough so it looks like he could hide anything."

"He'll limp," Bobby said. "But maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing, for him to seem injured."

"You'll need sandals instead of those boots." Jodie was off, rummaging through her bag. "Kel -- can you send the knife to be coated with dragon's blood?"

"He's not a Drac . . ."

"But he's drinking Drac blood. It can't hurt," Jodie said.

More of the blue-robed Luxguard came into the cave, before Kelano could call an order. Dean heard his stomach growl. They carried food, but it was more of those crackers, something like farmer's cheese, and dried fruit.

"When we get home I'm going to eat the biggest cheeseburger I can get my hands on." He watched Sam stack a cracker, bit of cheese and piece of fruit together, then pop it into his mouth. "What, no wine-tasting?"

Helene mimicked Sam, chewing thoughtfully. " _The skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any fighting._ When do the wingless Drac eat, Kelano? And what do they eat? Surely your people aren't --?"

"Drac will eat nearly anything. They like to eat humans, but the tribute my people provide consists of both live and slaughtered animals. The worms eat many goats and sheep," Kelano said.

"Just after sunset, every night," Baird said. "Each hold has attendants that belong to the Drac living there. Tribute arrives many times during the day, but there is always a regular feeding at night. Afterwards they bleed three Drac, and carry the blood to Luxaur."

"How much Drac blood can be extracted from those robes?" Helene asked.

Dean saw Bobby's face, heard Sam's chuckle at the same instant. "You are the Queen of dirty tricks, Hel. You thinking of slipping chocolate laxatives to the football squad before the big game?"

She grinned, a radiantly evil expression. "As Jodie said, it wouldn't hurt. I know dragon blood is used in making dragon swords, perhaps it will function similar to the way dead man's blood does with vampires."

Kelano looked between them. "I had wondered why the Goddess chose you as my allies. You seemed so much like my people, on first meeting. But your minds are very different."

"We need to leave soon. I've sent for additional Luxguard to join us," Baird said.

"All women?" Helene frowned.

"Yes." Baird seemed surprised. "Luxguard are . . ."

"All women." Helene sighed. "Can you turn up any men who would serve in their place? I'd like each of the groups that tackle the wingless worms to be made up of three people. Bobby, Jodie, you and I will act as leaders, four of the Luxguard will be our seconds, and I was hoping for at least one man to join Jodie and me."

"Yes, I know of two men who would be useful. But why? Luxguard are trained . . ." Baird looked frankly puzzled by her request.

"Would there be a difference in the reaction of the Drac guard if they saw a group of three women walking together, or if they saw a mixed group of women and men?"

Baird stared at her. "I see. A mixed group will be less threatening."

That gynecology thing. Even with the Amazonian guard, Dean doubted he would have found the clues. If they got home alive, he wouldn't let Bobby forget about Hel's assets.

 

Walking with purpose was a relief, after so much sitting and waiting, even if the walking was being done through deep, underground caverns. Dean wasn't particularly bothered by tight spaces, but darkness had become more ominous in recent years. He had discovered a preference for getting a clear, well-lighted view of whatever hideous thing was about to rip his head off.

They went single file along a twisting path that sometimes narrowed and dipped low. Baird, Kelano and Castiel headed the column, with Bobby, Jodie, Sam and himself following. In back of him the two new men and six Luxguard, now wearing sand-colored robes, completed the procession.

Hel had organized her raiders into four groups of three, each with one man, and offered the dragon sword to Jodie. "It's already been tried in the field. We know it kills dragons."

"Give it to Bobby," Jodie said. "It will take more upper body strength to use than the Luxblades."

Helene nodded, and handed the truncated sword to Bobby. "That's why I'm not taking it myself."

The rest of them were given Luxblades coated with dead dragon's blood. Even with the tiny knife, which was more than Sam had, Dean felt naked. He badly missed the trunk of the Impala.

Sam glanced back over his shoulder, keeping an eye open, not taking anything for granted just because his brother had his back. It hadn't escaped Dean's notice, the subtle reversion to an earlier time in their career. The office of Winchester and Winchester, paranormal dicks, was once again open for business. If Chuck was still writing anywhere, Dean imagined the cover on the next trilogy, probably titled something like _Dean and Sam, To Hell and Back Again_ would feature Fabio and something that looked like Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, both with wings. Having lived through their own Mt. Doom, Dean and Sam would find the world still needed hunters to clean up the trashy overflow of homeless orcs and sheloblings displaced by the chaos surrounding the unconsummated return of Lucifer.

Small wonder they quit publishing the books, Dean thought sagely. Even the Man Upstairs found it hard to keep a series convincingly alive after a certain point.

When they finally left the caves to climb back into weak sunlight, the sun was beginning its descent toward the horizon. Baird moved at once into a near run over the stony, scrub covered land. Single file broke as all but three of the Luxguard grouped themselves near Kelano. They alternated between a fast walk and jog. Baird seemed to know just how long he could push them before slowing.

They joined a line of covered wagons and people herding animals as the sun hung on by a fingernail.

Kelano pulled her hood up and fastened the face flap. Castiel remained by her side, walking with his eyes on the ground. The Luxguard spread out along the line, neatly herding their guests into the center of the cavavan.

Baird casually dropped back between Helene and Bobby. He spoke so they could all hear. "Once we're past that hill you'll see the Defile. Put your hoods up, keep your eyes down."

The ground grew harder and flatter as they skirted the hill, evidence of constant heavy traffic. The first sight Dean had of the Defile brought the unwelcome realization that, to stay with the theme, Isengard was at the end of this Triptik.

A wide, shallow valley stretched below, surrounded by a rim of hills. Black smoke hung thick and low in many places, giving the buildings and land the dirty look of a smudged charcoal sketch. Rickety human habitations were thick on the edges of the valley, but the center was dominated by what looked like a modified Mayan pyramid, and a ring of six, blocky, enormous stone constructions.

"Drac guard." Baird pulled his hood down lower and bent his head. "Ahead, before we enter the outer ring."

They were a scabby lot that projected all the menace of mangy rabbits. Two of the Luxguard effected a casual transfer of several parcels, then continued to walk. Bribery. There was hope for these people, Dean thought.

Passing between huts and hovels, they broke away from the caravan. Flickering lights began to appear in the gloom from small fires and lanterns.

"We need to move more quickly," Baird said quietly. "Feeding will take place soon."

Their staging ground was a rough wooden plank and fieldstone building that looked like an empty stables. They crowded inside and stood close, Kelano and Helene at the center.

"Castiel and I will walk Dean and Sam to the edge of the inner circle, then go to find our target." Kelano paused as a young woman, barely more than a girl, slipped into the circle.

"The winged one has returned to its hold in manform after a long, loud interview with the Regent," she said, falling on one knee in front of Kelano. "It is very angry, very hungry and calls for food and drink."

Kelano pulled a crystal vial from her robes. "Spread this on part of the tribute, something bloody. Then wait for us near the hold."

The girl took the vial and left quickly.

"Dean, take off your sandal. It's time for Jodie to fix the knife to your foot."

Kelano stooped beside him and waited until he had the sandal off, then raked her fingers over the top and side of his foot.

"Shit!" The scrapes stung and burned. Dean looked at Kelano's nails and wondered what she could do with them if she really put some effort into it. Her comment about ripping genitals had been meant literally. "Was that necessary?"

"Protective coloring," Jodie said grimly. "Don't whine." She maneuvered the sheathed knife so it rode along the arch of his foot, and cushioned it with athletic tape. A thin strip of gauzy fabric, wound loosely under and over his foot finished the disguise. Dean replaced his sandal and stood experimentally. Yeah, that was going to be uncomfortable.

"Now. For each of the group leaders," Kelano handed out walnut-sized balls covered with hay. "For the live animals. If you can, let the worms feed before you move on them. The Goddess is with you. I will see you all at Luxaur. Dean, Sam, with us."

She led the way out of the circle, and all her people went to their knees as she passed.

They were challenged only once, by three Drac guard. Kelano snapped two necks, and Castiel skewered the third, without noise or fuss. Against the wall of a Drac hold Kelano paused and looked across an empty space toward the pyramid. A few figures moved through the gloom, going back and forth between structures.

"Lower entrances," Kelano pointed, "one on each side of the base. Near the top there is an exit, and a space open to the air, but hidden behind outer walls. That is where the pentagram is, where Samal has been sacrificing.

"Castiel and I will do our part as quickly as we may, then come and find you. He is terrible, Sam. His greatest weakness may be his sense of self-importance. Go now. We'll wait here for a count of 100 before we continue to the Drac."

 

There was silence between them as they walked toward the temple. Dean tried to keep his limp to a minimum, carrying his weight on the outer edge of his foot. It was nearly full night. A faint glow pulsed from the modified pyramid's top, but the bulk of black stone loomed in silhouette, unlighted. It wasn't until they got to the lower entrance and looked inside that Dean saw a few fireflies of moving light, and a sparse number of torches in what appeared to be a huge, ground level chamber supported with stone pillars. Wreckage was everywhere. Broken stones and rubble rose and fell in undulating heaps of debris.

"I wish we had the Colt, or a couple of shotguns," Sam whispered. "I'd settle for Sting."

"You still mad about that _Fields of Gold_ CD?" Dean tried to joke away the upsurge of comfort that always came when it was obvious he and Sam were on the same wave-length. "Bobby's got the blade that was broken, we have to make do with our stunning good looks and above-average intelligence."

"Sting wasn't the blade that was broken," Sam reminded. "Did you even read the books?"

"People with above-average intelligence shouldn't ask questions they already know the answers to." Dean looked around through the poorly lit space. "There. Center stairway."

It seemed odd that no one tried to stop them. Dean saw several men standing near an entrance on the right wall at 9 o'clock from where they entered, and it was obvious they could be seen in return. But no one moved to challenge or question. The obvious conclusion came to him, on the landing of the first level, that no one thought the thing upstairs _needed_ protection.

On the landing of the second level they stopped, as much by the smell as the sight. In keeping with the dimensions of the squared pyramid shape, each level had a smaller area. While the first landing was empty, the second was stacked with dead bodies. The smell was bad, but as Dean's quick count passed twenty corpses, he thought most of the deaths had to be recent, or the atmosphere would be unbreathable. He met Sam's eyes, and saw his brother lock down the same instinctive horror and anger he felt.

The smell of fresh, open air was a physical relief when he stepped off the third landing, through the final upper door. The spacious walled area around the top of the temple was brightly lit with torches and candles. Dean could see a pentagram stretch from the doorway to the wall in front of him, painted with a dark rust-colored substance. Two more bodies lay on the floor nearby. A single, upright figure stood by the wall, back toward them, looking out over the city.

Sam punched him in the ribs, gently, as he stepped past onto the pentagram.

"Excuse me. I'm looking for Regent Samal."

The figure turned, slowly. For a moment, Dean thought there had been a mistake, that this man never could have resembled his brother.

"What are you?" Samal took a long, gliding step toward Sam.

Older than Sam, Dean thought, fighting his stomach's attempt to exit through his throat. He was scarred on face and chest with deliberate, tribal-looking markings. His hair was long on top, braided, but shaved along the sides. An outer robe, richly embroidered, hung open to show his naked body beneath.

"My name is Sam."

"Are you supposed to look like me?" Samal's eyes travelled beyond Sam, taking in Dean's presence by the door. "And who is this? He looks familiar as well . . ."

"Hey. I'm Frodo. Nice pyramid." The thing had red eyes, Dean saw as they flashed back to Sam.

"Are you here to die? They usually have to drag them up." Samal's fingers reached to touch Sam's hair. "They will bring my blood soon. You can divert me until they come."

Sam's backbone was ramrod straight, his shoulders slightly back. "Why are you killing them? What are you trying to accomplish?"

Samal's hand dropped. He frowned, his eyes narrowing. "Who are you?" His hands flung wide in a gesture.

The paving stones of the floor came up to hit Dean, hard. It took him a few, shocked moments to realize that he had been dragged, flat on his belly, to lie between Sam and Samal's feet. Dimly he heard a ripping sound, and felt cool air on his skin. He could just see bits of their robes, shredded, around him on the pentagram.

"Let's get a better look at the two of you."

Dean was flipped over forcefully, his back resounding against the stone like an overripe melon. Sam still stood in the same position, as if rooted to the spot, but naked.

"What is this symbol?" Samal outlined the tattoo on Sam's chest with one fingernail, then bent his head and ran his tongue over the mark, leaving a shining wet trail on Sam's skin. "It is similar to the Drac working I have scribed on these stones beneath your feet."

"It's for protection against bad things." Sam's voice was tense, but steady.

"I am the only bad thing here. And it doesn't seem to be helping you." The fingernails continued down over Sam's ribs. "You are really very much like me, except for here." Samal's fingers closed on Sam's penis, then released it. He shrugged off his embroidered robe and stoked his own genitals. He was uncircumcised, and coming to full erection.

"Dean? Status?" Sam sounded less steady. "I can't move my feet."

"I can't move anything, dude. Need to change this channel." Dean had never watched horror movies, if he could avoid it. He'd seen a lot of porn over the years, some of it verging on horror. Samal bridged genres, and managed to combine the worst of both. "He touches my dick, I'm probably going to suffocate on my own puke."

"Wonder twin distraction time, then." Sam cleared his throat. "We came through a gate to get here. From the world the Drac came from."

Samal's hands dropped to his sides and clenched into fists. Dean felt his throat close, his heart pound so hard it seemed as if it might burst from his chest.

"Drac gate?"

"Yes." Sam's voice was strangled. "Kill us and we won't be able to tell you any more."

"Why would I kill you? That is, why would I kill you quickly?"

Looking upward from the ground, Dean could see Samal's head and shoulders nightmarishly outlined by the torches behind him. He squatted beside Dean, touching his tattoo. His nail dug into the flesh beneath twice, leaving long, stinging gashes as it went. Samal carried the finger to his mouth and sucked the blood away.

"You look familiar, and your body is also mutilated. There is something about your face, your mouth . . ." His head jerked back, and he stared upwards at Sam. "Brothers? You are brothers." Samal jumped to his feet and backed away from them. "This is more than a chance resemblance. Have you come from that other world to take my power, to become me?"

From somewhere, not too distant, a terrible, rising scream filled the night.

"Lux!" Samal flexed his fingers.

The world went red in front of Dean's eyes, and he saw Sam's body bow forward at the same moment. Pressure and pain pounded at his entire body, hammered at his temples.

"Is it trying to kill a Drac?" Samal threw back his head and laughed, a crazy uncontrolled laugh that left him hunched, clutching his stomach. "We know there's only one left, and it can't kill them all. Did it kill the missing Drac? Is it trying for the other winged one?" He capered around them, gyrating obscenely. "If it dies, well and good. Then I'll kill the Lux myself. The wingless worms are mine already. I've fed them to the point where they care for nothing but their treasure and the food I send. I can bleed them forever."

Samal spun on his heel and ran to the wall to stare into the night.

The pressure on his chest eased. Sam collapsed at the same instant. Dean heard his own ragged gasps for breath, heard Sam panting and choking.

"Fucking cuckoo for cocoa puffs." Dean struggled to sit up. He nudged Sam with his foot. He nearly laughed when he saw his sandals, and Sam's boots were the only bits of clothing the nutjob hadn't bothered to strip off them.

Sam flopped himself closer. "How much longer? If Kelano is fighting now . . ."

"As long as we can." Dean felt Sam's fingers loosen his sandal strap. When the athletic tape let go it made a small, ripping sound that raised every hair on his body.

There was no sign Samal had heard. He seemed to be jogging in place, singing to himself. Dean looked away quickly, but the image of Samal's jiggling bare ass wasn't easy to erase.

Sam stuck part of the tape between the fingers of his hand, then eased the knife from its sheath. He palmed the blade carefully in his left hand, using the tape to protect his skin from the razor edge.

"Tell me even without a soul I wasn't like that." Sam sounded sick.

"No." Dean shook his head. "You were more Riddick, or Feyd. He's more Baron Harkonnen." It wasn't a bad comparison, and this wasn't the time for anything but reassurance.

"I feel so much better," Sam said. "Pitch Black or Chronicles?"

"Pitch Black. Better get his attention away from the city." Dean experimentally flexed his knees. "The feeling is coming back."

"Samal. I don't want your power, I'd just like to go home." Sam staggered to his feet. "I'd like to go back through the gate."

"He's got a hot date with this new chick in town," Dean added. "Hate to rush off, nice place you've got, et-cetera."

Samal turned back to them. "Where did you come through, and what casting did you use to form the gate?"

"Somewhere in the badlands." Dean stifled a groan as his chest contracted again. "Dude -- we're not from around here. I don't know street addresses."

"I could show you where," Sam said. "I could show you a lot of things. I could tell you things about our world."

There was something in his brother's voice Dean had never heard before, but Lucifer's face made a brief appearance in his mind's eye. "Sammy . . . "

"He's the powerful one, Dean. Everyone, everything will be beneath his heel. I could be important too, serving him. No angels, demons, heaven or hell here to screw with me. I haven't felt a thing from the Wall since we've been here, it's like it doesn't exist in this world. He could be a new god, I could be his greatest servant." Sam bowed his head toward Samal. "I could be your greatest servant."

Samal licked his lips. "This would be good. I'd like you to show me things." He stepped close to Sam's body, raking his nails lightly over the tattoo. "There are things I will show you as well. But first," he clenched his fist, "that one needs to die."

A sound of cracking bone came from Dean's chest. He screamed, putting all his strength into the protest. Pain pounded in his chest, burned his lungs.

"No." Sam grabbed Samal's hand. "Let me do it. I've wanted to kill him many times."

The pressure eased. Dean groaned, remembering how long it took for cracked ribs to heal.

"Why did you wait?" Samal's red eyes glowed with anticipation as he looked between them. "Very well. You kill him, I'll watch. Would you like to finish cutting his cock off, then carve out his heart? I have a knife around here somewhere . . ."

A scuffling noise by the entrance interrupted the offer. Two hooded men shuffled into sight, then stood still. They carried clay pots that looked like they might hold about a quart of liquid.

"My blood." Samal stepped backward from Sam. "Where is the third offering?"

"Coming, Regent."

It was one of Kelano's two men, who had been part of the raiding parties. Dean felt the euphoria of hope offset some of the pain in his chest.

"Give me my blood." Samal stood still as the second man approached. He accepted the pot, then backhanded the man halfway across the enclosure. "You're late. Was there any problem in the city?"

"None that we saw, Regent," Kelano's man answered. "Although there was much commotion near one of the winged Drac holds."

Samal tipped the pot to his mouth, drinking noisily. He tossed the pot aside. It shattered near Dean's head, driving pottery shards against his cheek and arm. When Samal extended his hand again, the second pot was accepted without violence.

"Send a squad of guard to find out what has happened there, and return to tell me, quickly." Samal threw his head back, spread his arms wide and shivered. "I want to watch you cut him now."

"Where's your knife?" Sam took a step toward Samal.

The fallen man had gotten to his knees, and was crawling back to the doorway. Dean turned his head, and saw movement in the darkness there.

"Somewhere." Samal blinked and staggered slightly. "Very strange. I feel almost drunken."

"Let me help you." Sam stepped close, curving one hand around Samal's hip, nearly touching their bodies together.

"Yes." Samal had no personal space issues. He pulled Sam's body against his own with one hand, and used the other to grip Sam's chin and hold his face still. "You can help me. Cut him open, and his blood will ease the way when I take your body for my pleasure."

"Okay. This is a personal record that will probably stand until I die, most disturbing come on ever." Sam put his arms around Samal's neck, fingers fumbling together. "So I think a simple answer of _fuck that shit_ doesn't quite do the moment justice." With a deceptively slow gesture he moved one hand back, as if to brush the hair out of his eyes.

Dean saw the muscles bunch in Sam's forearm, and barely saw the motion as his brother drove the Luxblade into Samal's eye socket. The force of the strike threw their bodies apart. Samal screamed and fell like a stone near the center of the pentagram.

"Nicely done." Baird came through the doorway, holding a stained Luxblade. His robes were singed, hanging in black tatters. Others were close on his heels. Bobby, Helene, and two of the Luxguard quickly joined him, all looking the worse for wear, but all walking unaided. Kelano and Castiel came through the doorway last. Castiel's arm hung limply at his side.

"Jodie isn't here yet? I'm going back for her." Bobby tried to step past Kelano, but she caught his arm and held him.

"You have another job to do." She pushed an object into his hand, then stalked to join Baird where he stood over Samal's convulsing body. "Move him to the center." She held a Luxblade high, then brought it down, fixing the blade through Samal's stomach into the rock beneath. "Singer. Draw the sigils."

"Not until --"

"I'll find her." Baird disappeared at a run.

There seemed to be a dark edge around his field of vision, Dean thought, blinking. Sam appeared next to him, and helped him sit up. The motion was excruciating.

"You okay? Kelano says to get you properly positioned on the pentagram."

"I can never again say you've had worse offers. How do you think I feel?" Dean sucked in his breath and tried not to black out as they scooted the few feet to a pentagram point. "How did the raiding parties do? Where's Sheriff Mills?"

"Kelano says they were all successful. We lost two of the Luxguard, one in Jodie's group. The man in her group made it to the temple. He said Jodie lost her bag in the fight, and was going to haul it out from under the worm, then follow. Jodie ordered him to leave and let Kel know they killed the worm."

"Cas?" There was a ringing noise in his ears. Dean shook his head, seeing Castiel's mouth move. When his hearing returned, Cas was moving past him.

"It's nothing. I can heal when we get back." Castiel limped to Kelano's side, stood over Samal's body. "He's dead. There is a short window now, before the energy begins to dissipate. Helene, Sam, move to your points. Bobby?"

"Nearly finished." Bobby worked swiftly, but carefully with the chalky marking stone Kelano had provided. "I ain't saying the spell until Jodie is here." He pulled off his outer robe and threw it at Sam. "Put that on nature boy -- Kel, we need another robe for Dean."

Helene took off her robe. "Wrap it over him, don't move his chest again if you can help it."

"I'm sorry the tablets were destroyed," Kelano was saying to someone. "There may be copies still on your world. My Goddess, my people, I thank you for helping us recover our freedom."

Dean blinked as the soundtrack dissolved into gentle white noise. Somewhere, he thought he could hear music, like the accompaniment of a silent picture. Vaguely he felt Sam tuck the robe around him. Kelano and Castiel curved together, joining in a fierce embrace, Samal's body ignored at their feet. Baird staggered out of the doorway with Jodie in his arms. One side of her face was dead white, the other livid purple. She clutched her bag against her chest, and looked absolutely furious. As Bobby pulled her against his own chest, Dean saw her lips move.

 _mother fucking worm had its ass on my purse_

He would have laughed, if he could have moved his mouth. Bobby kissed Jodie, simply and thoroughly, then sat her on the pentagram next to him and stepped onto his own spot. Kelano stepped away from Castiel, vacating the pentagram. As she left, Baird passed her, crossing to Helene.

A nimbus of fuzzy special effects played around Baird and Helene's joined lips. Apparently he and Sam were the only ones who hadn't gotten any on this little excursion, although even Sam had gotten felt up.

 _She so did hit that._

It was nearly Dean's last thought as everything fuzzed to gray.


	6. BACK AGAIN

Author: **Glinda**   
TItle: **Rough Magic**   
Rating: **NC17**

 **BACK AGAIN**

One moment he had been standing under black night sky, with torchlight playing over skillfully jointed stone drenched in blood. The next he stood, with his companions, in a grassy field beside a blacktop road in the middle of nowhere. Sun was bright in the sky. Looking around him, Bobby saw Jodie and Dean sprawled on their backs.

"We've got casualties." Bobby knelt beside Jodie. She was able to grimace at him, but not quite speak. One pupil was larger than the other. Fear nearly stole his breath and voice. "Cas," he called, urgently, "Jodie's hurt bad."

Castiel bowed his head, then removed his robe to reveal his trenchcoat and suit beneath. His arm no longer hung at his side.

"Castiel. I don't think he's breathing." Sam was next to Dean, frantic.

Castiel bent, touched Dean's forehead, then his chest. "There. Let him sleep now." He left Dean and went to Jodie, and touched her forehead. "Let her sleep as well."

Bobby pulled her off the ground, holding her against him. The bruising on her face had disappeared, evened out into normal skin tone. Her breathing was deep, even. He closed his eyes and rested his face in her hair, trying to let go of the terror he had felt, that she might die on the ground of their own earth, at the end of everything they'd accomplished.

"Where are we?" Helene stood looking at the road.

"Black Hills. South Dakota." Castiel looked at Dean's body. "I can't move you all at once. Bobby, release Jodie. You and I will check to see if the Hellhounds are gone."

This transition was even more abrupt between one place and another. His house was quiet around them. Bobby found the backup shotgun in the kitchen bread drawer, then followed Castiel down the stairway to the basement, nearly holding his breath.

The panic room door was wide open, giving Bobby a good view of blackened wreckage inside.

"That's not just hound blood," he said.

"Fire." Castiel stepped inside, looked around.

"Who? How?" Bobby groaned at the extent of the mess. The altered devil's trap on the floor, and three-quarters of the way up the walls, had been fire-blasted and charred.

"I don't know. But hounds didn't do it."

"That's going to take me more than one weekend to clean up." Bobby looked around for Castiel, but he was gone. By the time he got up the stairs, Jodie and Dean were back to back on the tiny library bed, and Helene and Sam were in the kitchen.

"Where's Cas?" Bobby stood looking between library and kitchen.

Helene walked straight to him and put her arms around him. "Just gone." She lay her head on his chest and sighed. "I'm too old for fieldwork."

"I hear you." He stood for a moment feeling various aches and pains move to the forefront of consciousness. Chaotic memories of the great stone chamber, their climb over the Drac's jumbled hoard, and final dispatch of the confused worm faded when he saw the walls of his own kitchen around him. "The dead dragon blood made the difference. And the sword finished the job quickly. How did you do?"

"I lost Lara." Helene's eyes squeezed tight. "It slammed her into a wall, and scorched her to death. We were able to get two Luxblades into it, and I believe you're right about the blood making a difference. I told Kelano to try quicklime and fire to dispose of the remains. She said they'd keep at it until there was nothing left but ash."

Bobby gave her a hug, then let her go. "I need to e-mail Sergei, tell him to deep six that diagram."

"Good idea." Helene followed him to the computer. "What day is it?"

Bobby looked at the computer screen. "We've been gone about 24 hours."

"That's all?" Sam uncapped a beer. "Want one? Hel?"

"Gracias." Bobby took the beer, upended the bottle until it was empty. "There's really no fricking place like home."

"No thank you, Sam. On that note, I'm going to leave." Helene patted his shoulder. "Tell Jodie I hope to see her again. Tell Dean I hope to see more of him." She smiled slyly at Sam. "Although I've seen enough of both of you to leave a lasting impression. I'll e-mail, or phone."

"I'll see you out." Bobby walked beside her to the car. His yard was still full of dead birds, now smelly dead birds. He sighed. There was going to be a lot of housekeeping to do in the next few days.

"You know me, Bobby. I'm going to write it all down, but I'm not going to rush to share it with anyone in the community." Helene had found her purse in the kitchen. Now she took out a pair of sunglasses and put them on. "Don't shut me out. When bad, dangerous things start happening, it's easier to fight if you have an army of friends."

"Yeah. That's the truth." Bobby waved his arm at the dead birds. "But sometimes it's hard to put friends in harm's way. We've lost people, the last few years."

"There are decisions you don't get to make for others, Bobby. I know the score better than most. You don't need to protect me." She leaned over and brushed her lips across his cheek. "You're trusting her, educating her. That's smart. Take care of each other."

Bobby watched her car drive away. Maybe that was the only real chance they had to keep the world, to keep each other safe. Work together, watch each others backs. Make the effort to find civilians who could be trusted with the truth, and teach them about the tools they needed to survive. A tipping point would be reached, if nothing was done, when the everyday world would no longer enjoy the monumental luck that had kept human civilization alive so far. Forces of darkness were gathering, and some of those forces might put on a show that would make the Apocalypse look like an afternoon at Disney World.

He needed another beer, and he wanted to look at Jodie's peaceful face again. He wanted to get the hell out of the loose cotton trousers and back into jeans and flannel. Bobby picked his way back to house between bird corpses, aware of a quiet satisfaction in back of his fatigue. Working together they had righted an old wrong, and kept an entire world of humans from biting the big one. Not a shabby addition to a hunter's resume, he thought. As he stepped into the house, shut and locked the door behind him, a fragment of Helene's favorite treatise bobbed to the surface of his mind.

 _If you know the enemy and you know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete._

It might be the key to all their difficulties, Bobby thought. Finding information on the Mother of All was still on his to-do list. But knowing Heaven. That might very well be the key.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 **Author's notes:** Dr. Visyak's favorite treatise quoted here -- Sun Tzu's _The Art of War_.

While comparing Soulless Sam to Feyd-Rautha (Sting, movie) might not be perfect, Feyd-Rautha (Matt Keeslar, mini-series (OMG!) seems better. Keeslar was built like a brick shithouse).

Yes, Kelano has nipples, but no belly button. Even though the Lux lay eggs, the Goddess decided nipples as ornamentation and erogenous zones were necessary to the Lux design.


End file.
